


The Last Lieutenant

by olivemartini



Series: The Audra Stanton Series [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Female Characters, F/F, F/M, Fred Weasley romance, M/M, Murder, battles, fred weasley love story, got some serious angst, the normal death eater stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-04-13 18:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 67,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14118189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She is learning how to be a monster.This is how it starts: you try to be good.  And in the process of being good, you do things that cut you open, make you bleed, and the only way to change these open wounds into scars is to fill yourself up with something else, something a lot more bitter and hateful.A Fred Weasley romanceSequel to "The Potion Princess," second book in the Audra Stanton series.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is the second part of the Audra Stanton series. If you want to avoid spoilers, go back and read "The Potion Princess." If not, carry on, and I'll fill you in below.

The sun is too bright.

It's the first thing that she thinks, that makes her feel like this isn't quite real, but Audra can't bring herself to focus on that when she's so happy.  She's running through the cornfield behind the Weasley's house, the stalks brushing her shoulders and the wind catching at her hair when she runs, chasing down the flashes of her friends that she manages to see- Emmeline's blonde hair glinting in the sunlight, the hem of Clary's long skirt whipping out of sight, a trail of candy wrappers falling from George's pocket and one lone glimpse of Fred's trainer as he runs away from her.  Their laughter floats through the air to her, and the wind seems to whisper to her- _come to me, come to me, a little further._

Audra bursts through the edge of the field, tumbling out into the open ground, but something is wrong- her friends are not here, just Vance, standing on the edge of a cliff and facing away from her.  It's strange, and she has the feeling that she has been here before, but she doesn't stop to think about, just grips her wand and moves over to him, because Vance is her brother, and yeah, this might be weird, but he'll protect her.  That's just what he does.

"Vance?"  She reaches out to touch him, but he's cold, so cold, and when he turns around he is not beautiful like she remembers: he is skeletal, with hands ripped free of flesh and tipped with blood stained bones for fingers, face half stripped of skin and already rotting away, a hole in his cheek that a maggot is poking it's way through.  Audra hears someone screaming, and never stops to consider that it might be her.  "Vance!"

He's dressed like he was buried, because she remembers that part now, but she can't remember why, just that the suit cost a fortune and her Great Aunt Marjorie thought it was a shame to spend all that money on a dead boy.  "Don't you remember, little sister?"  He brings one finger to trace her cheek, and the bone scraps against her skin, cutting her face open, new blood mixing with the old.  "This was you.  This was all you."

Vance reaches out, gentle at first, and Audra is stumbling, falling down into darkness, tumbling back, back, back- until she finds herself sitting upright in bed, sweat plastering her shirt of her chest and legs tangled in the sheets.  There's an outline of a figure in the side of her room, and for a second she's confused enough to think that someone had come to check on her, but then she notices the hunched shoulders and heavy breathing and scowls.  "Worm tail."  There's enough anger in her voice to make him flinch away, even if he just saw her terrified out of her mind a few seconds ago.  "What are you doing in here?"

"Nothing, miss."  He bows and grovels, reminding her of a distorted version of a house elf.  "Just checking on you, miss."

Audra snarls, grabbing her wand and lashing out at him before climbing out of bed, because that's what she does now, makes other people hurt.  She makes her way through the dark house and out into the kitchen, where Snape was bent over a cauldron.  He doesn't move from what he's doing, just arches an eye brow at her.  "Peter was in my room again."

She sounds like a whiny teenager complaining to her father, but she can't help herself.  Audra had moved into Snape's house at the edge of the muggle town at beginning of the summer, back when she started to realize that Stanton manor had become too empty, too cold, too _something_ for her to stay there.  It's always dark, thanks to the heavy curtains and the haze of smoke coming from the cauldron and the countryside's prevalence for rain, but Audra doesn't mind.  Even candlelight is too bright for her these days.  

"I don't know why he does that."  Snape says, in a way that makes her think that he knows full well why does it and just doesn't want to scare her, even if Audra had already gotten the idea anyways.  He's sort of half in love with her, in a terribly creepy way.  "I'll talk to him tomorrow."  Audra was still standing there, so he finally pushed his potion away.  "Is there something else?"

"Does it get better?"  She waves her hand back at the bedroom, knowing he knows what she's talking about.  They've had enough times where she wakes with a scream on her lips and he bursts though the door, only to find her crying and gasping out for people that aren't ever going to come and save her, his dark eyes hidden and watchful.  "Do you ever get to stop thinking about it?"

It isn't just Vance in her dreams anymore, it's a never ending parade of horrible things and warped memories that have somehow gotten burned into her brain.  There's also that homeless man clinging to her robes, the first man she ever killed, Clary dying in Emmeline's arms.  She dreams of Fred, too, and even though these are good dreams, she wakes up with tears on her face.

Snape watches her, eyes cold and warm all at once, and she wonder what his nightmares are about, if he still dreams at all.  If he dreams of Lilly, or James, or his parents, or anyone else he might have gotten hurt over the years.  "No."  He extinguishes the flame under the cauldron with a flick of his wand, leaving the potion he'd been working on to ruin and sweeping out of the room.

His answer was loud in the quiet and stays with her long after he leaves.

 

 

She's learning how to be a monster.

This is how it starts, Audra thinks: you try to be good.

And in this process of being good, you get hurt, you cut yourself open to bleed for others, and they just ask you to do it again and again and _again_ until you are drained dry, until you're forced to fill yourself up with something else, something a lot more bitter and vile.

And then when this new thing fills you up, you fight it for a bit, but it eats through your veins like acid and makes you buckle underneath the pain, and the only way to fight through is to stop fighting, to ride the wave, to give in to the feeling that you need to be something horrible; to teach yourself the language of blood, to make others hurt so you don't have to, to fill your lungs with night air and your brain with the sound of screams.

She's losing sight of what she's supposed to be doing the longer she stays here.  At first, it was under Dumbledore's orders, but then it became about burying the pain she felt, and then it was all about making the whole world pay for Vance's death, like she could burn enough cities and spill enough blood to make a river and that might make her whole again.  So she lets loose, gives into that power that she knew had always lied untapped inside her, lets herself become to Dark Lord's favorite and be seated as his right hand man, be the one he turns to for missions and asssasinations and murders.  

She's sliding into something she doesn't think she can back from.  It's not about saving people anymore, its about causing pain and chaos and outrunning her own demons.  She doesn't learn much that could be of use for the Order, but she learns other things instead- how to throw a knife so it always hits its mark, how to hit someone and make it hurt, how to use unforgiveables and mean it.  She learns about fiendfyre and inferi, about other dark magic she can't bring herself to think about.  She also learns how to torture werewolves, and how to keep someone awake long enough that they go insane, and how to keep a mermaid in enough water that she's not dead, but not really alive either.  

"You want to do the honors?"  Emmeline circles around her, marking the wall with grand, sweeping gestures, burning letters into the cement with a scorching spell.  They've become the official muggle terrorizing team, on a huge scale, for no other reason than the fact that breaking things (or people) was fun.  It's noticeable enough that the mark they leave (a twisted mixture of their initials) is being splashed across every news broad cast, muggle and wizarding.

  Audra raises her wand, lets out a scream and wind rushes past both of them, causing Emmeline to stumble forward as the windows of every building all down the long city street break outward and rain down onto the street.  She stares to watch it, because she likes to watch the things she does, but Emmeline is shaking her head and tugging at her arm, yelling to be heard over the noise.  "We have to go.  Come on, Audra."

Audra looks over her shoulder one last time before disapparating.

She's glad that Fred can't see her now.

 

 

"There's an order meeting tomorrow."

Snape had been watching her ever since she came in that night.  He's been watching her a lot, but he doesn't say anything, even as she slides deeper and deeper into someone that she never wanted to be.  Audra pauses in cutting through her steak, letting her fork fall onto the dish with a clatter. They always dine like this, with fancy food and fancier china, a surprisingly domestic way for the two of them to live, if you didn't count to murder.  "It's at eight.  If you want to come."

"I thought I was done with the spying."  She had thought that she would kill for a chance to see everyone, but now that the option was open to her, she wasn't sure.  How could she look at them, knowing what she's done?  How could she expect to fit in with them, when her grief has bent her all out of shape?  "He said I was only supposed to be his.  Dumbledore said that, too."

Snape quirked an eyebrow, which was getting to be one of his favorite expressions.  He really is a good man, when you get to the core of him, just bitter.  "Dumbledore won't be there."  He downs the rest of his wine in one long gulp, then slams it back down to the table, making her think he had gotten into yet another fight with him.  "And you never struck me as someone who likes to follow the rules."

 

 

 


	2. The Burrow

She almost doesn't go.

It's not that Audra doesn't want to be there, or that she doesn't want to see everyone.  She wants to be there so much that it actually aches, a pang in the chest, a yearning to see their faces and be held in their arms and have proof, once and for all, that even though things have changed, their feelings for her have stayed the same.

 _But things have changed, and so have what we felt for each other,_ Audra thinks, her palm splayed flat over the splintered wood of the Burrow's front door.  She can hear the babble of conversation coming from the inside, all the light and the warmth seeping out from under the door and shining through the windows.  The evening light is fading, but even so, she can still make out all the familiar things about this house she had loved so much.  _You've changed, something inside you gone all warped and twisted and wrong, and they'll take one look at you, and they'll know._

They'll know about everything.  About how she would sit in her big, cold, stone house and cry, huddle on the floor and sit by the fire place and try to get warm, but her hands would never stop shaking.  How she had to leave, how she would wake in the night shaking from the nightmares and would flee to Snape's house and then she just ended up staying there.  How she's learned to lurk in the corners, how her smile isn't really a smile anymore, how something inside her has knocked loose and gotten put back together in a way that's slightly painful.  How's she done so many bad things that weren't part of Dumbledore's Orders, the lives she ruined and the people she hurt and the families she destroyed just because hurting them felt better than dealing with her own pain.

Audra takes in another shaky breath and then pushes in on the door, wincing at the creak.  She flinches back against the sudden burst of noise, a round of raucous laughter coming from the kitchen, every sound magnified because its happening in such a small space.  Truthfully, the Burrow isn't big enough to hold an Order meeting because of how small it is, but somehow they made it work.  

There are people everywhere, crammed onto couches and propped up on tables, crammed into the kitchen and leaning back against counters.  There's a loud clamor of dishes coming from inside the kitchen, suggesting the Molly is just cleaning up from dinner.  Audra stays in the doorway, suddenly unsure of where to go or what to say, when she finally catches sight of Fred and George.

She hadn't see them since that day after the ministry break in, when she showed up at their flat covered in blood and dust and smelling of smoke.  And she hadn't spoken to Fred since that day on the beach, when she dropped that necklace into his waiting hand and they kinda/sorta broke up without really breaking up.  And yet here they were, taller than ever, slouched back against the counter with laughter in their eyes and glasses of pumpkin juice in their hands, halfway through a punch line.

Audra lets the cloak fall back, and can pinpoint the exact moment that Fred realizes she's there, every inch of his body pulling into a tense line as he straightens up.  "Audra."  The room falls silent, everyone turning to see where she had walked in, and it felt like the room was too bright, too hot.  "What are you doing here?"

"I'm still part of the Order, aren't I?"  Her voice is thin, but she offers up a cross between a smile and a glare.  She unfastens her cloak, lets it fall off her and hands it to Charlie, who looks so confused by the sudden tension in the room that it's almost funny.  "Thought I better come say hi to everyone."

There's silence, heavy and oppressive, and then Fred is slamming his glass on the counter and crossing the room to get to her, wrapping her in a hug so tight that she's actually lifted off her feet.  "Thank Merlin."  He moves away, puts his hands on her face and then her shoulders, like he can't decide what he wants to be doing.  He's genuinely happy for her, but all Audra can think about is how he's changed- he's a few inches taller, his face thinner, and has gathered a few more freckles, but his hands are the same, with the same scars and same mole at the bottom of his palm and the same steady strength.  "I was so worried about you."

"I told you I'd be okay."   _But I'm not okay, I keep acting like I'm fine and saying I'm fine but this has never been farther from the truth, help me, help me, please, someone put out this fire inside me before it burns the whole world down._ "And I told you I'd see you soon.  I keep my promises, don't I?"

"Yes."  He takes her hand and leads her further into the room, where George can clap her on the shoulder and Ginny can give an excited squeal and Molly wraps her in a giant hug, where Mr. Weasley proposes a toast and Mad-Eye gruffly proclaims her "satisfactory," like nothing has changed.  There's only Snape, sitting in the corner of the room far back from everyone else, watching her like she knows exactly what took her so long to come in.  "You always do."

 

 

"We need more allies,"  Remus says, weary and tired.  He's rubbing at his temples angrily, ad Audra suspects that the full moon is growing nearer.  Beside him, Hagrid was nodding along, but Audra wasn't sure if that was due to agreement or the giant mug of ale he had just drank.  "You know who has the giants, the dementors, the vampires.  We cant even get more than a handful of wizards on our side."

"They're paying attention now,"  Tonks says, reaching out to him, but then thinks better of it and pulls away.  Audra thinks she's the only one who noticed, but then she catches Molly's eye across the table, who shakes her head sightly.

"I told you, they don't now who we are,"  Charlie starts in again.  This has been the same conversation that they've been having all night, around and around with more problems than solutions.  Audra has to fight down an agrravated sigh, and beside her, Fred bumps his leg against hers in what might have been a stab at sympathy.  "to them, the threat doesn't even exist.  They've never seen what he can do, they have no idea of what might be coming.  There's no reason for them to join and risk their necks when they don't have anything to fight for."

Audra hears the message behind it, the thing that no one else seems to get.  It isn't tha they don't know the danger- all the ministries have been working together for defenses, they all know that if one area of the wizarding world falls, they all will.  It's the fact that they don't have someone to follow, have no one to fight for, no one to trust leading them.  And the people sitting around this table know the dangers, and don't feel right about asking anyone to risk their necks for them.

They aren't used to choices, and to sacrifices.  Audra's grown familiar, and thinks she would let the whole damn country tumble to the ground as long as the people she cared about came up on top.  Maybe that's why she spoke up, letting of Fred's hand and leading forward, speaking down the table to Remus.  "I know someone.  His name's Damien."  She ignores the startled and sightly betrayed look Fred gives her, swallows down the guilt of what she's offering, telling herself that things like this must be done.  That, as Dumbledore would say, it's for the greater good.  "He'll help us."

"How do you know?" Tonks is smiling, her eyes twinkling, but Audra ignores it.  Damien wouldn't join out of loyalty to her, she knows, it'd be out of his stupid insistence to do what's right, to fight for other people, and his ability to care about people he's never even met.

So she tells them, about how they were friends last year, and that she stayed at his house over the summer, how she grew close to his parents, has stayed up to the eary hours talking to his father about The Dark Lord's growing force and what must be done to stop them, how Damien knows that should the fight reach him, his muggle mother would be in danger and he's willing to do whatever he must to put himself between her and the Death Eaters.  She doesn't tell them about the specifics of sixth year, about the tangle of emotions he created between Audra and Fred, about the Yule Ball, about the promise to come to each other's aid if the time came.  "He'll help us."  She doesn't tell them about the nights where she admitted things that she would never say, about the guilt and the pain, the feelings about her family and her brother and how her love for Fred actually hurt, sometimes.  "I know he will."

"Well, that's settled."  Charlie grins over at her, amicable.  He's got a fresh burn across his neck, raw and angry.  It's mark of how bad things have gotten that Molly hadn't halted the meeting until she could take care of it for him.  "When shall we convince him?"

"I can head over in the morning."  It doesn't occur to her to give the job to anyone else, or that maybe she should stay here longer, try to pretend that she belongs here.  Maybe, if she would let herself settle back in, she could force herself to fit in the mold of the girl she used to be.  "I've got the time."

"Not alone, you aren't."  It's the first serious contribution Fred has made, and it's said with an angry glower directed at Charlie, like it was all his brother's fault that Audra was going to go off on her own.

"Fred.  Don't be silly."  It's sweet that he's being protective, but also slightly annoying.  "I'll be able to protect myself just fine."

"That's not why I don't want you going alone," He mutters, voice low and angry and just a hint embarrassed.  Audra had forgotten how possessive the Weasleys could be, but that rears its head now.  

"Merlin's sake, I'll take her."  Charlie gives a loud, booming laugh, missing the tension like he always does.  He never was one to fuss about relationships, and never really understood the inner working of the couples around him.  It's a blessing, sometimes.  "Can we go back to doing something interesting, now?"

"Yes,"  Arthur clears his throat and then cleans off his glasses, watching Audra carefully from his side of the table.  Beside her, Fred grips onto her hand even tighter, and she squeezes back, even though she feels more like pulling away.  It scares her, that she feels the need to run from him now, when she's pretty sure she needs him most.  "Back to business."

 

 

"Has it been awful?"  Ginny asks, her voice moving through the space between them, barely audible.  Molly had sent them all to bed an hour ago, and Audra hadn't hesitated before crawling into bed with Ginny, the two of them curled up around each other and covered in a small mountain of blankets.  Audra is always cold now, and needs all the warmth she can get.  "Have you been terrified?"

She hasn't been scared at all.  Aura doesn't think she's managed to really feel anything since that night at the ministry.  Even the days during Vance's funeral were a blur.  Now all she feels is a numb sort of rage, the feeling that she must keep moving, keep doing things, keep putting distance between her and the past.   _I'll write myself a new story,_ she remembered thinking, when her mother had pulled her close and told her that this wasn't how it was supposed to be.   _Even if I have to write it in blood, I'll make myself a better ending.  One where they can't take my choices away from me._

"Parts of it.  Some things have been bad."  But not all of them.  Because she still gets to see Draco every so often.  Because Emmeline is still her best friend, and they are at the top of the food chain and not to be messed with, even though neither of them mention Clary because it hurts to much.  Because part of her enjoys playing this role, of being the storm of darkness that she always knew she had the potential to unleash.  "But I'm here now, aren't I?"

"You are."  Ginny looks at her like she knows more than she's saying, like she understands, like maybe she gets the idea of darkness eating away at you more than Audra thought she would.  But Aura doesn't like that, doesn't like t when people attempt to understand, so she turns away from her and stares out the window, doing her best not to flinch when Ginny's warm fingers wrap around her cold ones.  "And we'll make you better."

 _There is nothing to fix._ Audra blinks back sudden tears, surprised that after everything she's gone through, it is the promise of someone caring that makes her want to cry.   _Maybe this is who I've always been._

 

 

She crawls into bed with Fred around three in the morning, after Ginny's breathing evened out and the house stopped creaking.  He wakes up slowly, not with a start like she does.  "What's wrong?"  He reaches out for his wand, but she stops him, holding him still with just a touch to the wrist.  "What are you doing here?"

"Ssh."  It's just a whisper, a promise.  This is wrong, she knows, to come in here like this when Molly thinks she's safe and asleep, to hide in the dark with George right beside him.  If things were different they would have snuck downstairs and passed around leftover cookies, swapping stories of their summer until they all fit back into their role as best friends, dealing with Molly's half hearted scolding when she finds them.  But things are different, and Audra needs this, the dark and the silence and above all needs Fred, so she just bends down to meet him, her hair falling around both of them like a curtain.  "Everything's okay.  It's just me."  

"Just you?"  His mouth quirks up into a shadow of a smile she had remembered.

Audra smiles, not her real one, but the one she's learned to use when she wants something.  Fred doesn't notice the difference.  "Just me," she promises.   _Me and all my many ghosts._

 

 

He meets her outside in the morning, after she left him alone and snuck out early.  Audra doesn't turn around when she hears his footsteps, doesn't want to see the look on his face, if he's angry or disappointed or doesn't care at all.  "I wish you were wearing my necklace."

It's not what she had been expecting.  "So do I."

This, at least, is not a lie.  She does miss it.  Sometimes she still thinks it's there, and she catches herself reaching up to run her fingers along the chain like she always did when she was sad or scared or upset, only to touch her bare skin instead.  When she's feeling sentimental, she thinks about how she traded a necklace for a dark mark, and wonders if she ever has a chance at going back.

"I want to see you more."  There isn't blame in his voice, but there is anger, the words somehow pulled tight.  When he breathes out, his breath clouds in the morning air.  It'd an unusual cool summer, and today was no different, shrouding the both of them in fog.  "I don't want to go the rest of this damn war not hearing from you, wondering if you're okay, if you're alive.  Because I love you, and I'd wait that long for you if I had to, but I really don't want to do that."

"I want to see you, too."  She thinks of last night, of spending the night in his arms, his lips on her skin and his hands holding her in place, all the things he whispered to her.  It hadn't fixed everything, but it had been strangely cathartic.  "But I can't just pop into your shop any time I feel like it."

That, she thinks, had been one of the hardest parts of this.  She had gathered up every shred of news she could about the twins, seeing them in the Prophet and in fashion magazines, on the cover of Witch Weekly and in the stock report, but she hadn't been able to walk into the shop itself and see what they've created, walk around in the shop that all of their hard work had made.  It had been part of her life, too, and now she didn't get to enjoy it.  

"I didn't mean the shop.  Do you remember the old tree house we found after our third year?  The one you and George and I used to sneak out to play in.  Mum found us there the one night and woke up the whole woods when she yelled."  She did remember, this rickety, falling apart things with a swing set and holes in the roof that show the sky.  "It's still there.  And Hermione made us a pair of these, our very own set.  Two way connection."

He holds up a golden galleon that shines in the sunlight, then tosses it to her.  It spins, over and over, and then lands in her open palm.  She stares at it in disbelief, fully aware of what he's giving her- a hope, a lifeline, a connection.  "No one can know."

"No."  He doesn't argue against it.  This is not the same boy that left Hogwarts that day with a laugh and a dream and a life ahead of him.  This is a man who knows what war means.  She wonders what she missed, what darkness has grown inside him.  "No one."

She can hear Charlie calling for her, his voice drifting over the fields with the fog.  "Every chance we get."  This is a promise.  So far, she has not broken her promises to Fred.  "Anytime I can sneak away, I will."

He pulls her to him, and they stay together for one last kiss.  When it ends, he pushes her away like it hurts him.  "Why can't you just stay?"  There is a plea in his voice, and Audra knows that this is an honest question, his one break where he begs for her to stay.  And she knows that its going to hurt him when she pulls back, turns away from him and chooses the war over what he's offering her.  "We could have a good life together."

Audra steps back, runs her hand from shoulder to wrist and smiles sadly.  "Charlie's waiting on me."  It feels like the first crack between the two of them, the beginning of the end, and she holds out a hand like a peace offering.  "Walk me back?"

He doesn't.


	3. Damien

Charlie stumbles when their feet hit the hard packed earth of Damien's front drive, but Audra doesn't, just takes off down the road and leaves him to catch up.  It's a long walk from the barrier point to the actual house, so she knows that she'll have to make nice with Charlie eventually, but she wants to push it off for as long as she can, even if it only buys her a few seconds.

He catches up in a matter of moments, taking long, loping strides with his hands burned in his pockets.  Charlie shouldn't be handsome with all the burn marks scattering his skin, but he is, and there's an easy going nature about him that makes his appearance even sweeter. The easy going nature might have been why he doesn't hold it against her when they walk side by side again, bumping his should against hers.

Weasley's.  They're all so touchy.

"So you and Fred?"  

He's grinning at her, so she knows he's teasing, but she can't quite stomach it.  Audra's gotten used to pain- people being gentle around her has become a foreign concept.  "Don't pretend like you didn't see it coming."  She's good at acting, but it's exhausting to keep up the charade around people who she thought would be able to see right through it.  "How bout we walk in silence?"

She doesn't expect him to agree, but he does.

 

 

 

When she's standing on the steps of Damien's house, it aches with the feeling of home.  She had spent a good few weeks here, coming back into herself through the haze of her grief under his care.  Its a new kind of awful to bring this danger to his family after what he had done for her.

She knocks on the door, three sharp raps, and it swings open a second later.  At first she is greeted only by an overly excited black lab, but Damien's face pops around the corner as soon as he beats his dog (Lady) back into the house.  "Audra!"  He wraps her into a hug and she suffers through it, even though the unexpected touch of hands on her is like knives sliding on her skin.  "And another ginger!"  He squints up at Charlie, his eyes tracing the path across his face as he takes in all the scars.  "How many redheads are you friends with?"

"About three more," She admits, and then crouches down to pet the dog.  Lady had been her constant companion during her time here, babysitting her when she went on long walks through the woods at night.  "Are your parents here?  We've come to talk to you."

He seems to know, instinctively, that it was serious.  Damien leads them to the kitchen, and even though everyone else was sitting around the splintering table and sipping tea from chipping china, Audra stands guard by the fireplace.  She feels safer with her back against the wall.

Charlie did most of the talking.  He was good at that, sounding eloquent, forming the words that make a concrete reason for why they should join.  And Damien's family listens, his mother working a roll of bread dough under her hands, his father staring intently at Charlie, and Damien just looking down at the table.  "We need your help,"  Charlie finishes.  "We need to band together before he can separate us."

He does not say who "he" is.  There's no need for it.

"You want me to say that I'll help."  Damien's father pushed his cup away from him, and tea sloshed over the sides and soaked down into the wood.  "You want me to bring this war here, to my home, to my family.  And for what?  It's not here yet."

"You fought the last time."  He had told her that, his war stories.  She thinks that Damien had told him that she was grappling with guilt over turning her back on her family, even if they don't know the details, and maybe he wanted to let her know they all do bad things when it comes time for the fight.   "And that was too much for anyone, to fight once, let alone twice.  But trust me when I tell you that you're wrong.  The war isn't just coming.  It's already here."

Her words hang in the air.  She waits for Damien to come to her side, but to her surprise, it wasn't any of the men- it was his mother, with flour streaked across her cheek and grass stains on the knees of her jeans.  She's a woman that believed in magic, but the natural kind like crystals and palmistry.  She was only a muggle.

"They'll come for us.  Because of me."  Strength comes from those you least expect it to.  "They did the last time, and we fought in the ways we could.  And we'll do it again.  You can count on us, dear."

She reached out a hand, and beckoned Audra down to the table.  Audra doesn't sit but she does come closer, lets herself be dragged into the circle as they all stare down at their cooling cups of tea, readying themselves for another round of pain and war.  "We'll fight it."  Damien promises, even though he is not a warrior.  "And we'll win."

 

 

They talk logistics for a while, about Order meetings and how the messages will carry through and the importance of secrecy, but eventually, its time to go.  And when they do, Audra and Charlie making their way down that dirt road, Damien's mother runs to catch up to her.

"Audra!"  She's not even out of breath, despite having run half the path.  "A crystal.  For you."

She had been a big fan of forcing things like this on Audra while she stayed here, having her sleep with crystals under her pillow and hanging around her neck, drinking down mugfuls of steamed herbs and going to the local muggle market to get her fortune told.  

"What's this one do?"  

"It'll bring you peace."  It's a light blue, like the color of eggshells and oceans swirled together.  "Calm the storm in your."

Damien's mother taps her on the shoulder, like the anger was hiding in her veins.  Audra feels the pain swell and almost chokes on when she tries to thank her.  She just nods instead, curling her hand into a fist around the stone, letting the edges bite into her palms until it breaks her skin.

 _Peace is not meant for me,_ she thinks, going over to join where Charlie was waiting for her.  He looks at her like he knows that she is hiding something but is afraid to ask what it is. _I am only meant for war._

 

 

 

They crash land at the Burrow, because Charlie had insisted on steering and never had gotten very good at apparating.  Audra's the first up, only this time she stays and lends a hand to Charlie, pulling him out of the muck and mud.  It's not how she wanted to arrive.

"There's something different about you."  Charlie says, when they're both standing on their feet.  "I can't tell what."

"Pain."  She opens her palm and stares down at the stone in the center of her hand, at the blood that had smeared all around it.  And then she hurls it out into the cornfield, watching it sink into the sky and disappear.  "It changes a person."

 

 

 

She's aching.  That's the word for it, this thing inside of her, like it's a hollow vacumm and all the pain is sucking out her insides, scooping out her organs one by one, pulling them out and stuffing her back up with stone.  Fred seem to be the only thing that fills the emptiness.

"I love you."  They're both lying on the floor of his bedroom.  There had been silencing spells cast on the room hours ago, but they were still talking in whispers.  "You know that, right?  whatever you've done, whoever you think you've hurt, I've still got your back."

_Do you?   Would you, really, if you had known what I had done, all those things I broke just because it was fun, because it dulled the pain inside me?_

She doesn't say it back.  It doesn't seem fair, but its not like she doesn't feel the same, so she kisses him instead, tries to tell him that she loves him without having to say the words out loud.  Audra is too terrified that they might feel like a lie.

"We'll see each other soon, okay?"  He has his hands on either side of her face, making her look at him.  She's been avoiding looking him in the eye all day, because eyes are where the truth hides.  If he finds her secrets and she looks him in the eye, Audra would be able to see the moment where he decides not to love her anymore.  "Every chance we get.  And we can use the parchment."

"Not often." It was unfair of him to do this, because when they are alone she will agree to anything he asks, no matter how risky or unreasonable.  "Only when it matters."

"It always matters.  Everything with you matters."

Audra knows she should shove him away, walk out, leave him behind where he's safe even if it hurts, but instead she just pulls him closer, holds him tighter.  "I love you."  She cries when she says it.  "Merlin, I love you."

"I know."  He repeats it to her, and she hangs onto the sound of his voice like a prayer, like a lifeline.  "I know." 

 


	4. Cruciatus

"You have to mean it."  Bellatrix's voice whispered in her ear, breath hot on Audra's neck.  Audra wants to push her away, but she's too busy keeping her eyes on Emmeline, never looking away as they circle around the room.  "You have to _want_ it."

Audra doesn't think either of them want it, but both of them are bored, and even fighting each other is better than just sitting around and waiting.  "You have to feel it."  Bellatrix's nails scrape at the inside of her wrist, fingers trailing her arm all the way up to her shoulder.  The touch on her bare skin makes Audra shiver, and she tries to tell herself it wasn't because she was afraid.  There's no room for fear anymore.  "You need to feel it."

Emmeline's the one to start it first, arm slashing in a downwards arc that throws a spray of purple sparks at Audra's face.  She steps back and they fall to the carpet, a thousand singe marks that Narcissa would make them fix, and its all that Audra needs before she stops holding bac, wand flashing, hair flying as she twirls around the room, both of the deflecting the spells almost as soon as the other can send them.

It's fun.  That's the only word for it, really, and Audra wonders what that says about her now, that she thinks that dancing around the edges of pain is actually enjoyable, a constant test to see who will be the one to falter first.  She's been dying for a chance to prove herself to these people, the ones that are still looking at her like she's some little girl that they had watched grow up, not as a talented witch who could kill them all with only a few whispered words.  Here, now, with all of them watching, she isn't about to lose the chance to impress them just because it was her best friend she was fighting.

"You getting tired yet?"

Audra was giving her an out, or maybe she was only taunting her.  whatever it is, Emmeline doesn't rise, just snaps out a laugh and then lashes back with a whip of fire, one that Audra turns to smoke with a wall of water.

(They were completely ruining the Malfoy's living room.  Thank God Lucuis isn't here to see it now, he'd have their heads on a platter and serve them for supper.)

"Not even close."  Emmeline takes a hit to the shoulder and is knocked off her feet, but she rolls and throws herself back into the fight second later, making it Audra's turn to dodge  "You?"

She wasn't tired, but she was bored, and Audra knew that she would spend this whole time holding back when all she really wanted to do was let go, fight without worrying about who she was hurting.  She couldn't do that when it was Emmeline she was facing, so she snatches a dagger out of the side of her boot and throws it, watching as it nails her right in the shoulder.

"Fuck."  Emmeline stopped and let her wand drop to the side, staring over at her.  "Jesus, Audra."  She was pouting.  "Overkill  much?"

Audra snorted and stalked across the room to her, ripping the knife out and wiping the blood on her jeans.  Emmeline gasps out a muffled breath of pain, but Audra doesn't feel that bad .  The spells she had been sending her way had been ten times worse, and they both know it.

"You haven't seen overkill yet."  Audra grins at her, then turns to face the rest of the room, wand in one hand and blood covered dagger in the right.  If her mother could see her now, taunting all these men that crawled out of back alleys to get even a taste of power by giving them the chance to see her fall, she would have a heart attack.  Thankfully, her parents haven't talked to her in a while.  "Now, who's next?"

They wouldn't come forward on their own.  They're greedy and stupid, but everyone comes with a fully equipped sense of self preservation.  Audra won't take no for an answer, though, because hurting someone else, getting lost in the rhythm of a fight seems to be the only thing that can calm the ache inside her, make her feel a little more whole. 

"You."  Audra sizes up the line up, picking the person who seemed most likely to value his pride more than his life.  When she smiles at him, she can taste the blood in her teeth.  "I think you'll do just fine."

 

 

 

They all want a turn after that, each seeking to prove that they are the best, but Audra cuts them all down, because she is a wild fire and nothing can seem to calm the rage growing inside her.  She didn't have the time to work through not being okay so she has forced herself to be fine, stitching up all her wounds and fighting through the pain, but the scars are all too fresh and nothing feels the way it used to, like something inside of her is broken beyond repair. Audra doesn't know how to handle it, so she casts unforgiveables and throws her little knife and laughs while she's doing it, feeling nothing like the girl that Fred claims to love.

"Don't waste time with guilt."  Bellatrix had told her, when she found her hunching over the bathroom counter and staring at her reflection in the mirror, hanging onto the edge of the marble counter with a white knuckle grip.  "That's a useless emotion."

"I can still hear it."  She hadn't told anyone else about it, abut the nightmares and the screams, how she hears Vance's last breath in her head all the time, how she wants it to go away but at the same time not, because that would mean that her brother was leaving her for good.  "When is that going to go away?"

"When you move on.  When you push past it, cover it up with things you like better."  Bellatrix comes behind her and pulls her hair back away from her face.  Side by side, they look almost identical.  "If there's screaming in your head, make some on the outside, too.  Maybe it'll balance out."

It's not the best advice, but it's the one she got, and Audra must have decided she might as well try it, because when she walks into a room, screams tend to follow.

 

 

"Come on."  Bellatrix grabs her and Emmeline by the hands and skips ahead of them, leading them down to the dungeon like shes about to give them a special treat.  Emmeline slows down, but Audra had decided a long time ago that there was no point in trying to hide in a place like this, so she speeds up to keep pace with her aunt.

Bellatrix throws the dungeon door open so hard it bangs into the wall, giving them a full view of the man inside.  He's tied to a chair with rope, and when he sees them, he actually smiles.  Audra isn't used to people smiling when they see her, especially in this house.

"I need to get some information from him."  Bellatrix circles him, grabbing onto the chair and tipping it back before letting it fall back onto four legs.  "But he won't give it.  Rather rude, if you ask me."  

She's pouting.  Audra can't tell if she's really upset or just acting like it.  Azkaban has made it hard to tell.

"What's that have to do with us?"  Emmeline hasn't stopped being just as entitled as she was at Hogwarts.  Sometimes it's nice, but most of the time Audra would rather she keep her mouth shut.

"I got bored."  Bellatrix shrugs, and she looks a little bit more of the woman in those pictures Audra used to study, who would sit in a chair like it was a throne and walked through a room like she thought it belonged to her.  "Didn't want to do it.  The Dark Lord thinks you're special."  She's talking to Audra, and the way she says the words makes it clear that she doesn't entirely agree.  "Maybe it's time you prove it."

 

 

Audra thinks it over.

She knows that she doesn't have to do anything.  She knows that if it came to it, she could go upstairs an tell Bellatrix no, that she couldn't stomach it.  That's what Fred would want her to do.

But this was only one man.  One man that would mean gaining everyone's trust and approval, that would open doors to whatever position she needed to get more information, to be in a better place to act when someone does need protecting.  Compared to that, this man is nothing.  It's what Dumbledore would have wanted her to do.  It's what Snape would do without hesitation.  And maybe, in some place inside her that Audra never wants to look at too closely, this is what she wants.

She crouches down in front of him. 

"I don't supposed you'll just tell me, will you?"  The man doesn't say anything and she sighs, loosening the ropes and tipping him out on the floor.  He must have been sitting there a while, because he can't get to his feet.  

"That's a shame.  You know why?"  Emmeline is staring at her, leaning against the wall, trying to look like she doesn't care.  "I don't want to hurt you.  And I've been told that if you want certain spells to work, you have to mean them.  How embarrassing for me, if I try to torture you and it doesn't even hurt.  So you could just talk to me.  That'd be easier, wouldn't it?"  She's got one hand under his jaw, forcing him to look at her, fingers digging into his skin.  When she lets go, he spits at her, a mix of blood and spit that splatters over her face, making her shove him to the floor.

"That was a bad idea."  Audra doesn't feel like she doesn't want to hurt him anymore.  Now she just feels angry, and like she's wasted too much of her time on this already.  She forces herself to smile, then takes a few steps back from him.  "I really did want to do this the easy way."

 

 

He tries to be brave.

Audra remembers tryin to be brave once, of trying not to scream even when it hurt, but in the end, she always did.  He does, too, over and over and over again.

"Just tell me!"  He's curled in a ball on the ground and Audra is so tired of it all.  Somewhere along the line she started crying, and now she's blinded by tears as she kicks out at him, first at the stomach and then at the face.  "God damn it, can't you just talk?"

She casts spell after spell, and he writhes on the ground as they flow over his body.  Audra knows what he is feeling, about the white hot heat flooding through him and how he would do anything to make it stop, but he still doesn't say anything, not until she gives up on her wand and uses her fists instead.

Aura had said once that she liked it better that way.  More personal.  She knows that she's never going to forget these hours spent down in the dark, how he yelled for her to stop, how she cried but didn't even slow, just hit harder, until he was a bleeding mess underneath her hands.

"Audra!"  Emmeline grabbed her by the shoulders, tore her off of him, and Audra dug her fingers into her arm, right where she knew the knife had gone in earlier that day.  "That's enough."  He didn't even look like a person anymore, just broken.  "He said he's going to talk."

Audra takes a breath, shakes the pain out of her hand, and then closes her eyes but it doesn't help because she can still see his face, so she leaves the room instead.  Her aunt is waiting for her at the top of the steps, sitting there like she's a little girl waiting for her mommy to get done with her work so she can play.

"I did what you wanted."  There's blood on her favorite shoes.  She'd have to burn them, now, because even if Vinnie scrubs away every trace, Audra will still know what she had done.  "He'll talk to you now."

 

 

Bellatrix comes to find her later, after Audra had a chance to come back to herself a little bit, standing in the shower and letting the heat run over her.  It's something she had picked up from Mrs. Weasley, who had told her to take a bath or a shower every time she was upset, something about the therapy of getting clean again.

It helps, but that goes away when she sees Bellatrix.

"You did wonderfully, darling."  Her aunt is holding her hands, and Audra can see the blood crusted under both their nails.  Apparently one shower wasn't enough.  "You were so good."

Audra knows that she wants her to say thank you, to act excited, and part of her even feels a little sorry when all she can give is a jerky nod before walking past her.

 

 

She did not go down for dinner that night, or breakfast the next morning, just stayed up holed up in the guest room that Narcissa had set up for her, staring out into the forest from the comfort of her balcony.

Audra's writing a letter.

_I hope you still love me when this is over._

She imagines his response, how he would instantly tell her that he had never loved another girl in his life and didn't intend to, how what they had was as close to forever as people like them could get.

_I hope I still deserve it._

Audra wants to tell him.  To send it, and get it off her chest, and hear the truth.  

But she also didn't want to have the moment where he realizes that he doesn't love her anymore, and she doesn't want to risk anyone recognizing her falcon flying to the shop, so she takes it inside and throws it in the fire instead, watching until it is only ashes.

 


	5. The Monster Under the bed

Once she starts, it takes Audra a week for her to get used to it.

To the screams, to the pain, to the haunted look in their eyes when she is done with them.  To get used to the way that Bellatrix always looks so proud when she is done, how Emmeline seems a little frightened of her and Draco more than weary.  To get used to the idea that she might have become the monster she'd ben trying to avoid all along.

"Ow."  Audra normally doesn't let her pain show but it had ben unexpected, a popping in one of her knuckles when she was only trying to take measurements for a potion.  "Shit."

She stares down at her hand like it was somehow the one to blame, when it was really her who ket punching things without bothering to check if she had hurt herself.  

Snape raises his head from the cauldron.   They were working on some Order business that he wouldn't explain, just that someone had gotten themselves hurt and needed an antidote that doesn't exist.

He raises his head from the cauldron.  "You hurt yourself?"

Audra shakes her hand out and then goes back to the potion, poring over his notes.  "A while ago."

She wants the conversation to be over, and it should be, because he doesn't need to ask her how she hurt herself.  He knows all about those dungeon conversations that the Dark Lord like her to take part in.  Everyone knows that she gets the best results.

"You know it'd only take a moment to fix, right?"  Snape was already reaching for his wand, and Audra couldn't explain the panic that swelled up when she thought of that pain being gone.  "I can do it right now."

"No."  She snatches her hand back.  "I want to keep it."

He doesn't argue with her.  Audra almost wishes that he would.

 

 

She and Emmeline have formed a sort of team.  They've always been aware that they worked well together, but apparently the Dark Lord thought they could take that to another level, so now they're paired up on missions and sent out to do his dirty work.  Audra doesn't like it, but they are good at it.  That facts undeniable, especially when they do things like bust down a secutiry door and disarm two highly trained medi wizards without a struggle.

"That was disappointing."  Emmeline circled around them, clicking her tongue and tapping her wand against her thigh, because she likes to show off, to feel big and bad and powerful.  Audra just hangs back in the shadows, letting her do the talking.  "I expected that to be harder."

If Audra was being honest, so had she, but she'd known plenty of people who liked to believe in their own security even when all evidence points to the opposite.  Thinking that the horrible things can't happen to you and your family is a part of human nature, and sometimes it comes back to bite you.

"Quit playing around."  She bumps shoulders with Emmeline and then circles the house to close the blinds and lock the doors.  "We've got a job to do."

 

 

It had been pretty straight forward.  Death eaters couldn't very well show up at St. Mungos, so they needed someone to turn to when they got hurt.  Audra had thought that they would be easy to convince.

"Listen.  I don't know what's so hard about this."  Emmeline was getting frustrated.  "This isn't- we aren't here to hurt you.  We just need a healer."

"Someone to go to after you get done murdering innocent people, you mean?"

The wife was more collected than Audra had expected her to be.  She reminds her a bit of Mad-Eye, which makes the whole thing ten times more awful than it already was.

"Right." Emmeline crouches down in front of them.  "The point is, you're out of choices.  You either agree, or you die.  And what's the harm?"

It's the man that speaks up this time, which is brave, considering that he had gotten the full force of the surprise attack.  His head was still bleeding from when he had hit the floor.  

"We know what people like you do."  His voice was wavering, and Audra could see his wife leaning closer to him, getting just close enough that they could hold hands.  "We won't be taking any part of it."

"You wouldn't be doing anything that you wouldn't do at Mungos!  You think bad guys don't go to Mungos?"  Audra snorted.  Emmeline glared at her.  "Think about what you're giving up."

"We always said we would have to fight, when the time came."  The husband was a nervous looking thing, all bird limbs and glasses that made his eyes seem bigger than he were, but apparently he was braver than he looked.  "You-know-who has been defeated before.  He will again.  We won't stand in the way of that, no matter how indirectly."

"You're wrong."  Emmeline didn't say it with the fervor some of his other followers would.  She says it like she's scared.  "It's not like last time."

She raises her wand, and Audra is just seeing her shape the beginning of the curse when something catches her eye.  "Emmeline."  She peers closer at the picture on the mantle, hardly believing they had forgotten to mention something this important.  Maybe it was a test.  "Wait."

"What?"  

Emmeline hates to be interrupted when she's in the middle of a murder.

"Look."  She shoves the picture frame at her, and for the first time, the couples bravado made sense.  "They have a daughter."

 

 

 

Audra tells Emmeline that she would take care of her, ignoring the couples pleas and wondering what exactly she meant by that.

She wasn't going to kill her.  This certainly fell into Dumbledore's category of being the las hope for the defenseless and all that.  Audra just wasn't quite sure how she was going to save her, either.

Even without knowing that the plan was, she had thought it was going to be an easy job, up until she opened the door marked as the little girl's.  Audra was momentarily distracted by the sheer amount of pink the room contained, and then all of a sudden her shins were being attacked by a little girl with a lamp.

"Get out!"  She was screeching at her.  "Get out of my room!"

"Jesus.  Shit.  Shit, shit, what are?"  Audra had taken down full grown wizards in back alleys and dueled with Bellatrix, but it seems like her fiercest opponent was going to be a kid young enough to still have a teddy bear.  She ends up picking her up and throwing her onto the bed, holding her hands out in the universal gesture of _I mean you no harm._   "What the Hell?"

The girl sits up and glares at her.  "You said a bad word."

"I did.  I do that a lot"  Aura notices she's holding the lamp and drops it to the ground with a crash.  "What's your name?"

Apparently, even though her parents had taught her how to use a lamp as a deadly weapon, she's got no problem giving away her personal information.  "Billie."

That was probably a nick name, but Audra didn't have time for, or care to find out, what her real name was.  "Okay, Billie."  Audra kneels on the ground beside the bed.  "I'm Audra.  And I need your help."

There wasn't any protocol for how to help the kid whose parents you're in the middle of murdering. 

"There's some bad people out there.  And I'm trying to fix it, but I can't do that and worry about you.  So you need to hide, and stay quiet, alright?"  There wasn't any place to hide.  This place was entirely deviod of slightly dangerous childhood haunts.  "Can you wait for me under the bed?"

"No."  Billie actually was clutching a teddy bear.  "There's a monster under there."

Of course there was.

"Is there a monster in the closet?"  There wasn't, so Audra grabbed her and shoved her in the back.  "Just wait here."  For the first time, it felt like she was crossing a line.  Like this is going to be the moment she can't come back from.  "I'll be back.  I promise."

 

 

When she gets back to the living room, Emmeline is in full swing.  She has fun with this, getting creative, kicking out at them and cursing them as she paces around the room.

"I took care of her."  Audra tries to ignore the sounds that the couple makes, like she had just ripped a part of them away.  It might have been easier just to kill them and leave, pretend like she had never seen that picture.  

"Fine.  Good.  Whatever."  Emmeline waves a hand at her, and for the first time Audra notices the ring glinting on her finger.  "We need to get a move on.  I've got a date with Clary and I'm going to be late."

"You're what?"  This is definitely not a hostage taking topic, but Aura can't help herself.  "Emmeline, do you remember you're a death eater?"

Emmeline raises an eyebrow, pausing to kick at the wife, who had been crawling for her wand without either of them noticing.  "You're not the only one who knows occlumency."

"I'm the only one who knows it well enough to pull something like that off."  Audra knows that it was true, but she also knows that they would be happier together, even with the risk.  Or maybe that was just the part of her that wants to be with Fred talking.  Either way, she sighs and takes out her momentary flash of anger on the wall before stalking across the room and holding the door open.

"Go."  Emmeline looks at her, obviously confused.  "Seriously.  I've got this one.  Give Clary my best."

As she closes the door, all Audra can think is how screwed up this whole thing is.

 

 

Audra watched through the window until she was sure Emmeline was gone, then knelt down by the couple, loosening the bindings but not untying them.

"Listen to me."  She had to do this fast, before someone came to check on them.  The Billie situation complicates things.  "Billie's okay."  Audra's hands are shaking.  She doesn't like that.  "I didn't hurt her. I don't kill kids."  Yet.  "And I'm going to take care of her.  But if you want to see her again, you're going to have to say yes."

"Blackmail?"  The wife snorts.

"No."  Audra swallowed hard.  "Just someone who doesn't want to make a kid grow up without her parents."

When the wife looks at her, she's in tears, slowly dripping down her cheeks.  "We can't help him."

Audra grips at her wrists, tries to make her see sense.  To see how pointless their deaths will be.  "He'll find someone to help us."  She had to make them understand that this is not a fight they have to take part in.  "The next person will say yes. Or the next.  Or the one after that, but there will be someone."

"But not us."  The husband shook his wrists out, but he made no move to dive for the wand.  Maybe accepting defeat is a kind of bravery in itself, but Audra would feel better if they had fought.  "Just take care of our daughter, alright."

Audra nods and closes her eyes, counts to ten like Vance used to tell her to do when she felt herself slide out of control.  "Close your eyes."  She circled behind them so they wouldn't have to watch.  "It's easier that way."

 

When it's over, she steps over them and carves her and Emmeline's mark into the wall, then throws the dark mark up over the house.  After that, she goes on autopilot, down the hall to the kids room and then out the window, holding her hand as she drags her to the point where she apparates.

They're standing at the beginning of Damien's drive.  Audra hadn't realized that that's where she had decided to go until she was standing there, Billie at her side.  

"Did you kill my parents?"  She's looking up at her like she's not quite sure what to do if Audra had said yes.  "They told me that thing in the sign meant someone died."

Audra doesn't have it in her to have that conversation, even if maybe she owes it to her, so she just scoops her up and starts walking.  When she came to visit Damien over the summer, she always thought that this long walk was the prettiest part- the gravel crunching under foot, the leaves forming a canopy overhead, the great stone walls with the ivy creeping through the cracks and the black iron gates that creak when you open them.  Now, in the darkness, it just seems scary and she wants to get through it as fast as she can.

By the time she's at the door, Billie is asleep in her arms.  There are tears drying on her face, and Audra can feel where they had soaked into her own robes.  

Part of her wants to drop her off on the doorstep and leave, because then maybe she'll look like someone that wandered here to ask for help, like that might lift some of the blame off of her.  She doesn't think she has the right to touch her, when she can still remember how Billie's mother didn't look away even when she raised her wand, how the two of them were slumped against each other after they died and probably wouldn't be found for another week.  Even then, Billie wouldn't get to see them, because no one would know where she came from, considering that Audra wouldn't be telling Damien anything.

It takes more courage for her to knock on the door than it did for her to sneak Billie out of the house, her stomach twisting with the guilt- guilt from what she had done to the parents, guilt about lying to Emmeline and worrying about Clary, about bringing this to Damien's doorstep, about bringing this little girl into the war.  The whole thing makes her want to break down and leave, takes Billie and go somewhere that they could be safe, but then the door swings open and Audra's out of time.

Damien stares out at her, taking in her torn clothing and the little girl in her arms, then steps back to let her through.  Audra doesn't move.

"You're here faster than expected."  He crosses his arms, and now he's blocking the door, which makes panic rise up in Audra's throat.  She had to get back, to finish the job and report to Bellatrix, she had to make a cover story for the lost time. It never occurred to her that they might turn Billie away.  "Run into trouble?"

"Please." Audra held Billie out to him.  "Just take care of her for me?"

He takes Billie like he's used to being handed strange children in the middle of the night, as capable of always.  For some reason it reminds her of Fred.   "Why is she here?"

"Something happened." _I happened, me and my powers and what I'm willing to do to keep the people I love safe, can you see the blood on my hands, no one seems to but it's always there._   "Her parents are..." _Dead, I left them there in the living room surrounded by the remnants of what used to be their home, Merlin, what have I done?_   "Out of the picture.  She doesn't have anywhere else to go."  Audra needs to leave.  She can see the time ticking away, like there's an imaginary hour glass floating in her mind, the grains of sand slipping away the time she has to pull this off.  "Can you take her?"

"Yeah."  He shifts her in his arms, and Billie stirs.  "We've got cousins in America that will take her in.  She can stay with us for now."  He steps back away from the door again, an open invitation if she would only take it.  Audra almost wants to, because maybe then she'd get to talk to him, to be honest and have someone tell her that this isn't her fault.  

But this is her fault.  Everything, every part of it is her fault, and staying here would just mean more pain, more people she put in danger, more blood on her hands.

Audra steps away, and Damien follows, taking two steps into the night air.  "You don't have to go."  He's worried about her.  Everyone's worried about her now- Emmeline and Draco, Snape, Fred and Mrs. Weasley.  "We can put you in the guest room tonight, give you a chance to catch your breath."

It's tempting.  "I can't."  She pulls herself away and he can't chase after her, not with Billie in his arms.  "I have to go back, Damien."

"Audra."  He reaches out to her, but something on her face must have told him not to.  He lets his arm fall back to his side.  "Take care of yourself, alright?"

He looks small, standing there in his bare feet on the front porch.  Small and scared and like he had to much too worry about, all of it thanks to her.  Audra wondered what she looked like.

"Yeah.  You too."  She nods at Billie in his arm.  "Take care of her, for me, alright?"

He promises that he will.  Audra wants to say thank you, but that feels like taking blame, too, so she just turns and walks back down the long pathway until she can apparate.

 

 

She intends to go home, but she goes to find Fred instead, meeting him at the old run down tree house a few miles out from the Burrow.  They had found it when they were kids, and remnants from when they used to hang around here were still stuffed into the corners- musty old blankets, a few water worn books, a basketball and scarps of parchment that used to hold store designs.  They hurt to look at.

"I'm going to fix that."  Fred's pointing up at the hole in the roof.  She can already see the things that he's fixed- a new tire swing, more blankets, no more creaky floorboards.  He comes here every night, just in case she managed to slip away.  

"Keep it see through."  They're both lying down flat, her head on his chest.  "I like seeing the stars."

"Do you?"  His voice is amused.  "You'd think you would have done a lot better at astronomy."

It's strange, being here with him.  This time with Fred is the only part of her life that reminds her that she was something before the war- something more than a spy and a murderer and the girl who killed her brother.  It's getting hard to remind who she was- that girl who made potions just for the sake of being good at something, who had four best friends that she loved more than anything in the world, that loved strawberry everything and absolutely sucked at astronomy because all the planets looked the same.  

"They're pretty."  She turns on her stomach so she can look at him, counting the freckles instead of looking him in the eye.  One day, she'll have a full count and have to start all over.  "You know I love you, right?"

"Course I do."  He holds her tighter.  "I love you, too."

She knows that.  Fred says it all the time, with no reason other than just to say it, and each time she has to marvel at the fact that it doesn't cost him anything.  Audra can never make herself say it like he does- like it's a fact of life rather than something marvelous, like he could not imagine there ever being a day where he can not honestly say it.  

(Audra thinks that's the problem- she knows the full story and Fred just knows the good parts.  He's still able to look at her like she's a hero.)

"Sometimes I think you shouldn't."  She pulled away from him, switched to staring up at the stars again.  It feels like she's wavering dangerously close to a confession.  "Like there's something wrong with me for letting you be with me."

"Hey."  He comes to her and pries her hands away from her face, checking for tears.  There aren't any.  She hasn't cried in a while.  "This is just the spy stuff getting to you.  You need a night off."

"I can't just take a night off."  She rolled her eyes at him, because snapping and sarcasm seems safer than telling him the truth about how scared she is all the time.  One slip, and it's over.  "I can go to Snape's, but even then, I have to be ready for someone to show up at his door all the time. "

Even Snape's isn't much of a break, with having to be on the constant look out for Wormtail, but Audra doesn't tell Fred that.  It's ruin the night.

"I wasn't talking about Snape.  I was talking about a night off with me."  He tugs on the locket.  He brings it with him every night, and for a few short hours, Audra gets to put it on and feel the weight of it hanging around her neck.  "Run away with me, Audra Stanton."

It's stupid.  Incredibly stupid.  Audra isn't Emmeline or Clary, who are stupid enough to think that they're smarter than the Dark Lord.  She isn't Fred and George, who think that if you love someone enough and try hard enough, you can make the world work in your favor.   But she is someone who needs a break, and who loves the boy in front of her very much, and suddenly can't find a reason to say no when there are so many pros outweighing the cons.

"Just for a night,"  Audra says, reaching up to unfasten the locket.  They only get to spend a few hours together each night, but it's enough.

It has to be.

 


	6. Fireworks

She almost backs out.

Audra would like to say it was only one time that she thought about staying at home and never telling Fred that she had changed her mind, just sit there in the corner of the Malfoy's guest room and watch the turning of the clock, and then never, ever leave, even to go to the tree house and apologize.  Not that night, or the next night, or even the one after that, just stay away until the aching stops and Audra can trick herself into thinking that it never really mattered in the first place.

It would have been safer even if it wasn't easier, but it would hurt him, and Audra still wasn't ready to be the one to do that, so when the time comes she makes her excuses and slips out of the house, hood drawn up to hide her face.  It's a long walk to the apparition point, long enough to start to have second thoughts, but then she's there and suddenly she can't bear not seeing.

When she's standing on solid ground again, it's in the middle of a festival.  Fred had wanted to take her out to a real date, the cheesy kind where he pays for everything and she does her hair all nice, but since they had to stay out of sight, a muggle fair at the edge of London was the closest they could get.

She meets him in a coffee shop.  Audra can see him from the moment she walks in, but other than the first second of eye contact when she came in the door, they don't make any sign they know each other.  Instead, they wait- she gets a frappuchino with extra whipped cream, Fred says good bye to the girl he was talking to ( _she's actually ninety percent sure that it was George, the grin she had shot Audra's way was familiar_ ), and then he followed her to the restroom.

"I've missed you."  She's got her head buried in his shoulder to hide the tears filling her eyes, and Audra only manages to keep her head steady enough to reach out and lock the door before kissing him.  It's the first time they've seen each other outside of that tree house in weeks, the first time they might be able to walk through a street holding hands without worrying about putting each other in danger.  "So much."

"It's only been a week."  She pulled away from him and laughed, because even though they are in a disgusting muggle bathroom with its cracked mirror and leaky sink, Audra thinks that it might be her favorite place in the world.  "You just really love me."

"You know I do."  He grins, easy and familiar, and for once in her life, Audra is not worrying about Voldemort, she is not thinking about Order duties and death eaters and what her mother might be thinking, she is not hearing the echo of screams or thinking about the rattle of Vance's last breath.  She is thinking only of him.  "Are you ready for our date?"

He's holding a flower out to her.  It's a dark purple rose, and Audra takes it, twirling it between her fingers before answering.

"I've been looking forward to it all week,"  She hears herself say, trying to ignore the way that her stomach was still twisting up with worry and the thought that it is not worth trading safety for one night together.  It's a lie, too, but she's already told so many that Audra's started to lose count.

 

 

He apparates them out of the bathroom, to a back corner of the festival where they kept the dumpsters and no one would notice another pair of giggly teenagers, even if they did appear out of thin air.  Audra catches her bearings and spares half a thought for the fact that the door was still locked, but then Fred's tugging on her arm and she doesn't care.  The only thing that matters is that he was here.

"You know, I've never been on one of these things."  Fred tilts his head back to stare up at the Ferris wheel, the only ride in the whole place if you don't count the kiddy roller coaster.  "Bill and Charlie went once, when we were in Egypt, but I was too scared."

"George didn't want to go?"

"He did."  Fred's face screws up a little bit, like the memories hurt him.  "But he wouldn't leave me."

Audra nods without commenting, just squeezes his hand.  Even after being their friend all this time, she'd still found the bond the twins have to be extraordinary, like it's hard to tell where one stops and the other beings.  When she and Fred first started dating, she was half worried that it might have caused a problem between the two of them.  Maybe she should just be grateful that George loved her almost as much as Fred does, albeit in a different way.

"Maybe we shouldn't go."  It didn't look like something that was safe.  Audra had seen a picture of Hermione and her mother on one of these things, so she knows it probably isn't going to break down and crush them all, but she still doesn't like to trust in things when she doesn't know how they work.  "Since he hasn't gotten to go on one."

"Nah."  Fred said, grinning down at her.  That's another things about the twins- even though they were just as smart and funny as the other, somewhere along the line, Fred had been designated as the twin who leads the way.  Audra can't help but wonder if he even realizes it.  "I bought these tickets for a reason, didn't I?"

Audra didn't really want to.  She didn't want to be in this muggle festival, with all the lights and crowds, she wanted to be alone with him, where they could talk without interruptions.  She wants to hug George and she wants to ruffle Ron's hair, she wants Molly to feed her.  Audra wants to see the shop and spend the night in their flat, and she wants to feel like she was a normal girlfriend doing normal couple things, not one half of a couple that has to meet in out of the way places to avoid being killed.

He must have seen it on her face, because the smile slips a little.  Audra forces herself to be grateful for what she can get, because Fred, at least, is in his element.

"Sounds great."  She drags him to the end of the line and leans back into him, letting his arms wrap around her waist.  It's better than nothing.

 

 

 

It takes them two hours to get through everything in the festival, but by the end of it Fred was entirely out of muggle money- they had rode the ferris wheel three times and hadn't died, he'd won her a stuffed dragon in a game called ski ball, and they'd eaten their fill of Stromboli and cotton candy.  

"You ready for the fireworks?"  That's why they'd really come there.  No matter what happens or how old they get, Fred's always going to like watching things explode.   

"Duh."  Audra looks around at the crowd of muggles, the couples and the screaming children and the weary parents, and decides she'd rather not be here.  "Let's find a better spot."

She drags him down a back alley, one beside the coffee shop with the now locked bathroom, and together they climb up to the dumpster and then hoist each other up on the roof.  It might have been easier just to apparate, but this reminded her more of their Hogwarts days, where they busted into all kinds of things they weren't supposed to just for the fun of it.

"They're good."  They made it up there just as the fireworks started, and they crept to the edge, dangling their legs off the roof.  "Didn't think they would be."

Fred doesn't answer, just wraps an arm around her and stares ahead.   She's just thinking that maybe they really would manage to have a normal, perfect night when he speaks again.  "I think someone's watching me.  And George."  Audra doesn't turn to look at him, just looks at the fireworks, the purple and the green and the golden ones that scream before they explode.  "Our floo line, the mail, the shop.  All the time."

"They probably are."  Audra hadn't heard anything about it, so maybe it wasn't her people ( _can she call death eaters her people?  it's not a lie, even if she wants it to be_ ).  It could be the ministry.  It could just be a reporter.  "You're family- they're high targets.  Everyone knows that you're bloodtraitors, and then on top of that, you've hung around with Harry you're whole life.  There was bound to be a target on your back, even if you weren't in the Order."  She pauses to watch the finale, wishing she would be able to enjoy it.  "Have you seen anyone?"

"No.  But George thinks it, too.  He's the one who brought it up."  Not surprising.  The twins always seem to be on the same wavelength even if they're miles apart.   "I almost didn't come tonight."

Audra lets out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding.  It makes her feel like less of a disaster if he had second thoughts, too.

"You just have to be careful.  Don't do anything that might draw attention to yourself."

Fred smiles faintly.  "Like join the resistance or date a double agent?"  

Audra laughs, trying to hang onto the moment.  She gets so few of them where she feels okay.  "Like that."  It shouldn't be funny, but it is.  "Avoid those things and you'll be good."

"Too late."  He kisses the top of her head.  "Seems like I'm a wanted man now."

 _Rebels and on the run,_ she thinks, a line from some muggle song Clary used to like floating through her head.  If only.

 

 

 

"We probably shouldn't do this again."  She didn't look at him when she said it, just focused on their hands linked together.  They were back by the dumpsters again, and a few feet away was the blonde girl from before, who is definitely George.  Audra wishes things were different, because that would be excellent blackmail information.  "I want to, but..."

"But we need to be safe."  Fred lifts her head up so he can look her in the eye.  "That's all I want, for you to be safe.  Even if I don't see you again until this bloody war is over."

Audra chokes on a sound that might have been a sob, but she turns it into a laugh.  "We can only meet at the tree house.  I'll come as often as I can, but-,"

But she might not.  She might actually have ran out of time, and now all she had to look forward to was seeing pictures of Fred splashed across the Daily Prophet and trying to look like it doesn't matter.  "But no promises."  He's so understanding.  "And if we see each other in public-,"

"You walk the other way."  Only it might not be that simple, and Audra knows it.  "and whatever I have to say, however it looks, that's not real.  This is the real part."

She motions between them, wishing for the first time that they could leave the fight, leave everyone behind, disappear into some big city in America.  They could get a tiny flat with big windows, get a dog and a cat and they wouldn't even have to work, she could just pawn jewelry and they could hide together.   

"I know it's real."  Fred steps away from her, and Audra can feel the itch starting up again as he backs away, can hear the echo of the screams and the aching in her chest now that there's no one to distract her.  "I love you."

Audra makes herself smile.  "I love you, too."  

She doesn't say that it might not be enough.


	7. The Descent to Hell is Easy

Snape kicks her out.

Audra knew she had been pushing her luck, what with how she kept picking fights with Wormtail and drinking all his expensive whiskey, but even when she was at her worst she didn't think he was going to turn her away.

"Fine!" She kicked out at the door, telling herself that she wasn't upset about it, that she didn't need him, that she couldn't wait to leave this stupid muggle town.  Audra had lost more and come out on top, she didn't need to worry about some professor that would rather live alone than have someone to care about him.  "I didn't want to stay here anyways!"

Really, she hadn't been sleeping here every night like she had been at the end of the summer.  Now she only came here when she needed a break, and for that she could go to the tree house and wait for Fred, or hang out with Emmeline.   The only thing that she was losing was what Snape could provide- someone she could speak freely to, who knew both the best and worst parts of what she was doing in order to stay part of the fight.

"Shit."  She runs her hands through her hair and looks down the hill at the town.  It's full of misshapen buildings and little shops, and further down she can see the playground that Snape had showed her.  It was where he had met Harry's mother for the first time.  Audra knows a lot of stuff like that now.  "What now, Audra?"

Snape had told her to go home.  It was as good a plan as any, so she goes there.  The impact of her feet hitting the ground sent  stabs of pain up her legs, forcing her to hang onto the iron gates while she caught her balance, giving her time to stare at the mansion she used to call her home.

She hadn't been here for anything except meetings since Vance died, but these were still her parents, it was still her home.  This was _hers,_ and they weren't going to take it away from her.

"Mom?"  She pushes on the doors with a sigh of relief and breathes when they open.  There's a spell on it that unlocks the door for certain people, reading their thumbprint or something.  She had been half afraid they took her off the list.  "Dad?  Are you here?"

It was quiet.  Her house always was, but that had been silence brought from stifling and suffocation- this was the quiet you find inside a tomb or mausoleum, like someone had just died.  Which makes sense, really.

There's footsteps in the hallways, heels clicking quickly against the floor.  "Audra."  They hadn't seen each other for three weeks, but her mother already looks different.  She had always been thin, but grief had eaten away at her, and now there was nothing.  "What's wrong?"

It's a mark of how bad things have gotten that seeing her at home sparks alarm.  Maybe this is what they were always destined be, but it still hurts.

"Nothing."  She lets herself be wrapped in a hug, even though the motion came so hesitantly it was actually awkward and Audra was half afraid that she would break her mother just by touching her, as small and thin as she had gotten.  "I just wanted to come home."

 _Whatever you do, whatever you have done,_ Her mother had told her once, _There will always be me to come back to._   Audra had thought that she had finally proved her wrong, but now, seeing how happy her mother was to have her in her arms, she understood that maybe it wasn't her family who was turning her away.

Maybe Audra was doing that to herself.

"I came home."  She was choking on tears.  Audra always found herself balancing on the edge of some emotion these days, whether it was making her burst down in tears or try to put her hand through a wall.  "I came back home."

 

 

 

Dinner is quiet.

No one's saying a word, so there's just the sound of forks scraping on plates and Vinne scuffling around between them, bobbing down into a curtsy every time that Audra looks her way.  Her mother had been happy to see her, but her father holds onto grudges longer than his wife.  It was only her mother that kept her from being turned away.

"So."  He nodded at her over his untouched plate of food, the first words he had said all night.  "Finally decided we were good enough for you?"

Audra watched him over the rim of her wine glass.  It's strange, how even after you spend your whole life trying to make someone happy, they're always the ones that are ready to tear you down at the slightest provocation.  

"I've been busy."  It was easier to keep the mask on here, where she had always had to put on some type of a show.  "You may have noticed."

"We've heard what you've been doing."  His lip curled.  "Not very ladylike."

"Ladylike?"  Audra snorted.  "That's what you're going with?"  

She pushed away from the table, making the dishes rattle and accidently knocking over Vinnie.  Before she would have stopped to apologize and help her up, but that's not who she is now.  

"I'm going to my room."  She pauses long enough to lean down and hug her mother, pressing a kiss to her paper thin cheek.  Audra could see the veins standing out on her arm, blue against the pale skin.  "It's good to be home."

She doesn't look back.

 

 

 

Audra spends all night in her room, trying to force it to feel more like home.  

She throws the window open even though it's cold, trying to get rid of the musty smell, then goes around and clears off all the dust, lighting lamps and fluffing pillows.  She opens drawers and spills jewelry out onto her bed, pulls clothes out of the closet, buries her hands in a series of sweaters that Mrs. Weasley had knit her.  Audra could remember a time when she took all of this for granted, and now she hasn't seen it in months.

There's a false bottom in one of her desks drawers and she rips it open, tearing her nails but succeeding in dumping handfuls of photographs onto the carpet.  They're all from her Hogwarts days, before she got involved in the order- her and Emmeline and Clary with their arms around each other and ice cream staining their faces, Audra with Fred, Audra with George, her and the twins slumped over on the couch together, even one of them all in the tree house.  They're reminders of who she used to be, the person she really is, physical evidence of these people she loves.

It hurts to do, but she burns them all.

There's no room for sentiment anymore.

 

 

 

She waits until everyone else is asleep, and then she creeps down the hall, easing open the door to Vance's bedroom.  

It always creaks.  She remembers that from nights where she would sneak in after nightmares, how she would hold her breath and push it open like yanking off a band aid in order to stop her parents from knowing.  Even when she was little, she was always ashamed to go to them when she was scared or hurt, but she never had to hide anything from Vance.

The air is stale, just like it had been in her room, like it hadn't been touched in months.  Like nothing has left the room since the day he died.

 _He breathed this air,_ she thinks, walking around and trailing her hands over the trophies, tracing the script of all those awards.  Audra knows this room better than her parents do, all of Vance's secrets contained within four walls- the stash of muggle comic books in the back of his closet, the box of those pictures the girl he used to date sent him and he pretends he didn't keep, the whole in the wall from when they were playing catch. _He stood right here.  He used to sleep in the bed every night, sit at this desk._

It hurts, but its the good kind.  Audra sits down on the bed and grabs at the pillow almost blindly, pressing her face into it, because if she breathed deep enough and concentrated, she could almost smell him, his shampoo and the laundry detergent that Vinnie only used on his clothes.

"What are you doing?"  Audra looks up, startled, to find her father standing in the doorway.  His shadow looks larger than life, stretching out on the wall in front of them both.  "Why are you in here?"

"I just wanted to see."  If she had to choose, she wouldn't have wanted him to come and find her when she was like this, hunched over in Vance's room with mascara streaking down her face.  "Try and feel something of him."

"You don't get to do that."  Audra had known that her parents had done things, that they weren't always nice people, but until the moment when her father stalks across the room and rips her off the bed, she never had to be afraid of him.  "You don't have the _right._ "

He's got her pinned to the wall, his forearm at her neck.  "And you do?"  She spits it into his face, because hurting people is the only thing she knows how to do anymore.  Her world has shrunk to two things: kill or be killed.  "He's dead because of you, because of what you turned him into."

"He's dead because you failed him."  He's hurting her, she notices dimly, but she isn't that concerned.  "Because you couldn't protect him.  Because you're weak, and pathetic, and it should have been you!"

"I know it should have been me!"  The words rip out of her before she can think of what she is saying, and once she hears them, it's like they unlocked a part of her that she had thought was gone forever.  It ripped her open all over again, and the feeling made her push out and shove him away, get herself free.   "He was kind and smart and good and was going to do something with his life before you sunk your claws into him, but then you pushed him towards hatred and all your talk of greatness and now he's dead, all because you were too greedy to appreciate the life you had!"   She was breathing hard, shoulders heaving with the effort.  "You killed him.  He was twice the man you'll ever be and you led him straight into the fire without every warning him what he was walking into."

"Don't you dare."   He went pale, and his hands were shaking, aching with the effort of resisting the urge to hit her.  "Don't you dare say that, when you stand here like this, after all you've done."

"After all I've done?"  She raises her arms out to her sides, because she is no longer afraid.  "You made me into this.  You pulled me to this just like you did Vance, and you know it.  You know what the difference is, dad?"  Audra took a step closer.  "I could take it.  Vance just wasn't strong enough."

"Get out."  The voice didn't come from her father.   It came from behind them both, from her mother, standing there in her thousand dollar silk bathrobe, one hand on the wall to hold herself steady.  "Get out of this house."

 _Two in one day,_ Audra thinks dully, aware that her father is crying, aware that she is to, and knowing that this is the last straw, that they are finally cutting ties with her.

Audra takes a deep breath and wipes at her tears.  "Whatever."  She wants to be just another surly teenager throwing a tantrum, but she isn't.  "See you in hell."

 

 

 

She doesn't remember leaving, but she must have, because now she's standing in front of Clary's apartment, knocking on the door.

Clary barely opens it when Audra is bursting through, half expecting to see Emmeline sprawled across the couch.  It's almost disappointing when she sees it's just an empty apartment.

"What's happened?"  There are hands on her and Audra shakes them off, trying to tell herself that this is fine, that it's just Clary.  "Is Emmeline alright?"

"She's fine.  It's not Emmeline." _It's me,_ she wants to say. _It's me, I'm so broken and screwed up and I can't stand it, help me, someone needs to fix me before I break everything in the world that I care about, hurry, please._

"Alright,"  Clary says, guiding her to the couch, and Audra remembers why she loved her so much.  She might not have been as tough as she and Emmeline were, but there was strength in the softness.  "You're going to be alright."

 

 

Clary drew her a bath, teapot by painstaking teapot, and Audra didn't resist when she told her to get into it.

"I'm not going to come back."  Audra has her knees drawn up to her chest, drawing her hands through the water to catch at the flower petals.  Clary was into aromatherapy now.  "I shouldn't have come here."

"I'm glad you did."  Clary was on the other side of the screen, but underneath, Audra can see her hand and the promise ring glinting on her finger.  Emmeline had a matching one.  Audra can't believe she hadn't connected the dots.  "I missed you."

"It's putting you in danger me even being here." 

Clary stood up, apparently done with the conversation.  "I'm in danger everywhere."

 

 

An hour later, Audra was standing in front of the elevator, wet hair dripping and suit case held in her hand.

"Maybe it's time for you to disappear."  Audra tells her, thinking of all the people she had shuttled off to safety, but Clary doesn't answer, just twists the ring around her finger, which is an answer in itself.

 


	8. The Stars Are Burning

Living with the Malfoys is like living two lives at once.

There's part of her that is still existing with Fred, who is fighting to keep Harry safe and stays up late at night to send secret messages to Fred across the parchment, who is reminded of Mrs. Weasley every time she hears Celestine Warbeck and is still carrying messages to Dumbledore.

But there's another part of her, one who goes to harass muggles in town with Emmeline just because it's fun to make other people feel small, and goes through Lucuis' old antiques without worrying what they might be used for, thinking only that they gave him power.   There's a part that hears screams from the dungeons and does not try to save them, who ran melted silver into a werewolf's wounds and sewed him back together, watched while he burned from the inside out just because she had been ordered to make it _hurt_.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"  The man across from her, more goblin than human, looks at her like he doesn't want to let her in.  Maybe he knows her parents.  Or maybe he just hasn't learned to stop judging a book by its cover yet.   "Might get hurt."

Audra digs around in her cloak and pulls out a bag full of gold, hears the clink when it falls down to the table.  Its double the entrance fee, the price she has to pay for secrecy.  "I'm sure,"  She says, and brushes past the others in line to where Emmeline was waiting for her.

It had been Vance who had told her about this place, that his buddies came here some nights after work just to watch other people get pummeled.   It was the height of underground dueling clubs, and only the best of the best even dared to play.

Audra knows she's one of the best.  It's a new thing with her, to have stopped pretending she's anything other than what she really is, because there's no point in telling herself that she isn't a monster.  It was time for her to give in, and she had- it seems like this was the only thing that would be able to calm the ache inside of her.

 

 

They give her plenty of time to back out.

That was their first mistake, she thinks later, to look at her and think she was someone young and pretty but not much of a threat, to forget that in nature the prettiest things are the most lethal.   It takes until she strips off her cloak with the dark mark flashing on her arm and wand whipping spells around the ring for them to understand that she wasn't something to be messed with, to have them put up a little bit of a fight.

In the end, she comes away with blood in her teeth and screams in her ears and a bag of gold weighing down her cloak, all of them calling after her to go one more round.  She passes the goblin guarding the door on the way out and throws five galleons down on his table, Emmeline hard at her heels.  Audra could hear her laughing the whole night, drunk off of all of it, off her power.

"It's an advancement."  She leans over the table and clicks the coin against his betting board, where everyone but Emmeline had voted against her.  "Next time, bet on me."

 

 

 

She and Emmeline don't need the gold.

That's the worst thing about all this, that even if they had told their parents where they had been and how she had one, this would just be one small pile amongst all their millions.  But it was the first thing that Audra could say that she had earned on her own, even if it was slightly illegal.

"What are we even going to do with this?"  

They couldn't take it to the bank.  They couldn't take it home, at least not to spend it.  It would just sit in some hidden corner until the war was over, and then, it wouldn't matter.  Audra's pretty sure she's either going to be dead or in jail.  Dumbledore can't protect her forever.

"I don't know."  Emmeline was working her way through a sugar quill that they had bought off a vendor at the club.  "Don't really need it, do we?"

They don't, but for a moment, Audra entertains the idea of what it could buy them.  How in her pocket was enough money to last them a lifetime, that they could grab Clary and the twins and go, just disappear into thin air as far as their families and the aurors were concerned.  They could live out the rest of their days on the outskirts of some other wizarding town far, far away, and they would never have to face real life again.

But it wouldn't work.

She knows that almost as soon as she thinks of it, because Emmeline will not leave her chance for glory and Clary will not leave her Order duties.  Fred and George would not abandon their family, not even for her, and Audra would not believe any of them behind while she still had the breath in her body to fight.  

"It's better to get rid of it."  Audra doesn't care what Emmeline does with hers.  Maybe she'll buy herself a new necklace.  "Wait here."

Audra can hear her calling after her, asking her where she's doing and what she's going to do, shrieking that she better not just be throwing it away.  Audra ignores her, just keeps going down the twisting alleyways until she finds what she wanted.

"Hi."  The woman underneath the ragged blanket looks up at her.  It's happening more and more, wizards turned out on the streets just because people are afraid of what might happen if they're seen interacting with a muggle born.  They're apologetic and nice enough about it, but Audra's sure that it doesn't help matters when they find themselves out on the street.  "I'm Audra."

"There a reason you woke me up?" The voice is familiar, but Audra doesn't look at it too closely.  She doesn't want attachment this time.

"Yea.  Wanted to give you this."  She throws the bag down to her and part of it spills out, gold and silver spreading across the broken pavement.  "Don't spend it all at once."

"Why?"

She hasn't said thank you.  Audra's pretty sure she's not going to.

"I didn't need it."  Audra crouches down in front of her, wand pointed at the women's temple, and she stills.  "But you're going to have to do something for me."

 

 

The story makes headlines, how a homeless witch woke up to find over a thousand galleons in her lap and no idea how she got there, and that the healers say she was obliviated.

Emmeline stares at her all through breakfast.

Audra pretends not to notice.

 

 

 

He's angry.

Audra notices it as soon as she walks in the door and takes her seat, and for one heart stopping moment, she thinks that it's because of her- because of the dueling and how she showed her dark mark and then gave away all her winnings to a meaningless muggleborn.  But then she notices Emmeline, pale and stiff between her parents, all of them looking down at the table, and she remembers that everything isn't always about her.

"Evening, Audra."  He's twirling his wand between elongated fingers, staring right at Emmeline.  "Nice of you to join us."

"Apologies, My Lord."  She inclined her head at him in a bow, wondering if it was enough.  "I was told the meeting was at ten."

She'd learned it was better to put the blame on somebody else, even when it was her own fault.

"It was."  He smiled, and it looked wrong on his face.  "But since the important parties were here, I decided to start early."

If this was another meeting, she would have made a joke about her thinking that she was considered an important party just to see how indulgent he was feeling, but tonight the tension was too thick, the fear too palpable.  

"You see, I was awaiting some information.  Important information, about one Harry Potter.  But it seems that my trusted followers failed to gain it for me."  It was Emmeline's parents who was supposed to find out where he would be staying.    "I was deciding what my response was going to be, and here you walked in, the perfect solution?"

Audra would have given anything to have not been the one put in the spotlight.  "Me, my Lord?"

"Yes.   You like dueling, I heard?"  She wasn't in trouble, and that was worse. She was being rewarded.  "And Emmeline as well."

"A bit of fun, that's all."  Audra does not know how to walk out of this one, not when there was so many people she had to protect.  "We meant nothing by it."

"Oh."  He smiled again, skin stretched tight over his face, and Audra had to suppress a shudder when he placed his hand on top of hers.  "But I did."

 

 

It was a fight to the death.

Audra couldn't believe it when she was told to do it, that he would risk her like that, but then she realized that he had no intention of letting her lose.  But he had every intention of letting Emmeline die, to kill a child just to punish the parents.

"Bow to each other."  He sounded like it was all an amusing game to him.  Some of the others looked that way, too, and no one, not even Emmeline's parents, looked like they were going to step in to stop it.  "Come on, now, show some manners."

They don't break eye contact, and Audra could see Emmeline's silent question of how far she would be willing to go.  She didn't have an answer.

"Are you ready?"  Audra had her wand dangling at her side, giving Emmeline the first shot.  When they teach you to duel, they say you're supposed to keep it held at the chest, arm bent so you're only seconds away from striking out at you opponent.  

"To beat you?"  It's amazing that Emmeline can still smile when she's this scared.  "Always, Stanton."

Emmeline casts the first spell, and it takes no more effort than breathing for Audra to reflect it.  For a moment, it's like they're playing around again, showing off to get Bellatrix's approval, but then Audra catches sight at the expression on Voldemort's face and brings it up a notch, the spells darker, the pace faster, hair flying out behind them and skirts swirling.  For the first time, Audra realizes that she might not have any intention of losing.

She wants to live.  She wonders, when this is over, when she wins ( _because she will win, there was never any question of who the better witch is_ ) if she'll be able to look at herself in the same way.  Its never a good thing, to have to find out how far you're willing to go to survive.

"Come on, Emmeline."  She's spitting out the words, unsure if they're a taunt or a plea or caught halfway between.  "Can't you do better?"

Emmeline's on her knees, having been knocked down by the last stare, and for a moment, Audra is sure that they hate each other.  She can see it on her face, and Emmeline proves it the next moment, when the next slash of her wand sends Audra's stomach slicing open, blood spreading over the waist of her dress.  It's not deep enough to kill, but it slows her down, and that's when Audra decides to stop pretending.

 

 

 

They stop her, right when the final curse is at her lips and her wand is inches away from Emmeline's neck.  It was going to be fast and painless, an awful necessity that would haunt her until the day she dies, and even though every cell of her body was screaming at her to stop, she wasn't thinking of Emmeline.  She was thinking of all the people that her own death would put in danger, of Fred and George and Ginny and Clary, how she could not lose.

And then it's over.

He calls it off as fast as he had started it, with just a wave of the hands, and then two sets of hands were on Audra's shoulders and pulling her off.  She breaks free from them and turns her back with barely a nod toward where Bellatrix and the Dark Lord were watching, heading up the staircase to the bathroom, ignoring the familiar footsteps behind her.

Audra leaves the door open, heading straight to the sink and yanking her shirt up, wondering how hard this was going to be to fix.  It looks ugly, red and raw, the edges ragged instead of a clean cut.  The side effect of a spell that didn't have any feeling behind it.

"I'm sorry."  Audra meets Emmeline's eyes in the mirror.  She came out of with only bruises.  Audra's spells don't leave visible reminders.  

"Don't."  Audra doesn't have time for regret now, not about this or anything else.  She's moving from one task to the next, and right now all she needs to do is clean this up so she can move onto healing.  "You did what you had to do."

"I shouldn't have."  Emmeline takes the rag from her and washes some of the blood away.  The marble of the counter stains pink with all the blood.  

Audra knows that now would be the time to apologize, to say she was sorry, but she doesn't.  Emmeline had signed up for this.

"Would you have done it?"

Audra watches the two of them in the mirror instead of looking at her, wondering how they could have gone from trying to kill each other to nursing each other back to health in a matter of moments.

"I don't know."  She thinks she would have, but part of her still thinks there might have been a hesitation, a split second where she holds back and lets Emmeline win instead, even if it had felt like giving in.  "I want to say that I wouldn't have."

"I don't either,"  Emmeline tells her, like that was going to make it better, but it doesn't.

Audra's pretty sure it was a lie, anyways.

 


	9. And the Ashes Burn Us All

There are times where Audra forgets that things aren't okay.

Like, she'll be drifting of to sleep and have the audacity to forget the nightmares that haunt her and the memories that play horror movie scenes across the backs of her eyelids, and then she sits up in bed with fear clawing its way up her throat  Or she and Emmeline will be talking, and Emmeline will make a joke that wasn't really funny, and for a half second Audra will expect to hear Clary laughing, and its only in the silence that follows does she remember that Clary does not exist in their world anymore.  Or she wakes up, and in the muddled moments between sleeping and awake she doesn't think about what an awful person she is, just that she is tired and sore and wants ten more minutes of sleep, not the reasons why she had stumbled into bed at three in the morning or there was still imaginary blood caked in the lines of her palms.

It was the remembering that was the worst part.

Mornings were the hardest, having to drag herself back into the reality of who she was pretending to be ( _was she still pretending?  It's getting hard to keep things straight, separate who she is and who she has to be_ ), forcing a smile on her face when she sits down across from Draco and trying to hide the mix of comfort and revulsion when Bellatrix bends down to kiss her on the cheek.

Today, she must have failed, because the look on Bellatrix's face goes sour, and that's never a good thing for anyone.  When that look is directed at you, it means that she's going to make your life difficult.  Audra is no exception.

"I don't believe you can kill something."  Bellatrix is staring at her over the breakfast sprawled out in front of them.  There's half a piece of melon dangling from her fork, the juice streaming down her hand and dripping off her wrist.  "Not for real."

"I already have."  Audra didn't have time for this, and she hoped it showed, making it seem like her reluctance to talk was from annoyance rather than resentment.  "Or have you forgotten?"

She'd killed a lot of things. A homeless man, that first time.  Her brother, the second.  And then others, countless ones, people that she had been sent to kill or collateral damage in battles or someone who fell in a duel that got out of hand.  There was more blood on her hands than she would have thought possible.

"Strangers."  The piece of fruit falls onto the table cloth with a splat.  "Trash hiding in the street.  Weak men who make the mistake of thinking they were strong."   Bellatrix leans forward, upending the goblet of pumpkin juice.  "They didn't mean anything to you.  What are you going to do when its someone you care about?  One of your old school mates, or the little Weasel girl?  What are you going to do then?"

Audra stared across the table at her, dug the point of her knife into the linen tablecloth.  "I kill them."  She stood up, the chair screeching as it drags across the floor, leaving a mark that someone will doubtless spend hours trying to scrub off.  "Isn't that what I do now?"

 

 

She kills things.  

A lot of things, actually, and there's no sign of it stopping, not with both The Dark Lord and Dumbledore sending her on increasingly dangerous missions, and the fact that she keeps getting into more fights at the dueling club and leaving more heaps of gold on the doorsteps of the poor people like some sort of twisted Santa Claus.  She comes away with split lips and scraped knees and the magic still stinging her skin like static, and Bellatrix knows it, which is why Audra didn't give any thought to their conversation from three days ago, until she walks into her room and finds her Falcon tied to the ceiling.

It's got a string twisted tight around one leg, so it could only go so far in every direction, but it was still trying, wings moving her around in a frantic circle, trying to get to the window and failing every time.

Audra doesn't need to ask why it was there, or how they had done it.   She didn't want to wonder how long it had been like this, caught without knowing why, not understanding what kept pulling her back when freedom was so close in sight.  And Audra definitely didn't want to think that it was her fault that this had happened at all, that it was her that turned this creature into something trusting, why it had probably landed on Bellatrix's outstretched arm and held its leg out, waiting to deliver a letter.  

 _I picked you because you were terrible,_ she thought, remembering how she, Artemis, could fit in the palm of her hand when she was younger, how the talons grew sharp and broke the skin whenever she would hold her.  How she wouldn't wait for Audra to put the food down and would tear it right out of her hand, that she wouldn't come near her for ages.  Audra was covered in oozing cuts for weeks, and then finally, one day, she had left her perch and flown straight to her shoulder, like Artemis had finally decided she was strong enough. _I didn't want to bring another gentle thing into this, that's what I said.  I couldn't take more innocent things getting hurt._

 _But what are we?_   She wants to ask, but there is no one there who could give her the answer, not anymore.  There had been Snape, but he had thrown her out and now Audra isn't able to talk to him without feeling like she had been betrayed by someone that was supposed to take care of her. _We're tough, but we have to break eventually, don't we?_

"Hey, there."  There's no other sound than the frantic beating of wings and the occasional ping as the string hits against the light fixtures.  It's easy to reach up and snatch her out of the air, place her right on Audra's wrist even though the claws will cut her.  Artemis bends into her arm, like the brush of her feathers was a thank you.  "That's it."  She loosens the tie, eases it off, giving her one more chance to be free.  "It's all going to be okay."

Artemis trusts her.  There's no hint of suspicion with the way she rests there, right on her arm, waiting for some sort of explanation as to what just happened, like she can't quite reassure herself that taking off in flight will be okay.

"You can run away, you know."  Audra carries her over to the window.  "I can't.  But you can."

Audra watches her, palm resting on the back of her head, and Artemis just stares back, like she's actually listening.

They stay like that, both of them calm and trusting and quiet, right up until the moment that Audra breaks her neck.

 

 

 

Audra doesn't bury her.

When her old owl died, Vance had been the one to break the news to her, and in order to make it better, he performed this elaborate funeral.  They dug a whole underneath the willow tree with the bare hands, gouging their fingers into the dirt and pulling out the soul with each tiny fist full.  Audra could remember her nails ripping off and that she kept going, even though she was bleeding, even though Vance told her to stop, that he could do it, because _she's mine, Vance._

They buried her in a black both, with a silk lining that Audra found out later that Vance cut out of the inside of one of her mother's dresses.  It was placed in the ground and covered up by blue flower petals, and as Audra read the final good bye that she had written for the occasion, Vance pushed all the dirt back in.

This time, there is no funeral.  There's no good bye.  And there's no Vance.  There's just Audra and her dead bird, this thing she had to kill so she could prove to her aunt that no matter what attachments she might have had to someone in the past, she could still do what needs to be done.

She wants to tell Fred, and then chases the thought away, because she is not allowed to think of Fred here, not when she has just done something like that, and turns back to the bird instead ( _it's "the bird" now.  Not Artemis.  Not her pet._ ), cradling it in her hands.  Audra takes it downstairs and places it on the plate in front of Bellatrix's seat, right where everyone could see it.

There's a startled gasp from behind her, and Audra has to look around before realizing it's coming from the Malfoy's new house elf.

"Does Miss want me to take that away?"  She's got a heaping tray of food, and her little arms are quivering under the wait.  "Minnie can bury it in the garden."

"No."  It looks horribly morbid, sitting there on Narcissa's good china in the middle of all the food, looking like she might be sleeping except for the way her head was hanging.  "I want them to see."

"Alright, Miss."  The house else -Minnie- blinks and then tears her eyes away from it, busies herself with setting the rest of the table like nothing had ever happened.

It seems like everyone's gotten good at pretending.

 

 

 

There's a point to everything.

Audra is always so worried about keeping her own story straight that she doesn't ever have time to puzzle through other people's motivations, so sometimes, she misses what might have been obvious to anyone else.  Like, other people might have seen what she had done as simply deranged, but Audra has learned to spot a test when she saw one, and she knew she had to kill that bird.

The only thing she didn't bother to think about was why.

"What's the matter, Draco?"  The Dark Lord holds his hands out towards where Draco and his mother were sitting, and in the dimly lit room, the pale skin of his arms seem to glow.  "It's an honor."

"Yes,"  Narcissa says, faintly, like she's having trouble drawing breath.  Her hand has made its way onto Draco's arm, covering where the dark mark was burned in just an hour before.  "An honor."

Audra was quiet.  The whole room was quiet, actually, with everyone waiting to see who might speak next, hoping it is not them, because when the Dark Lord had announced that he had important job for them, they had all been excited, until he said he wanted them to kill Dumbledore.  And then they could nervous, because none of them could do it, and when he turned to Draco to be the one to complete the task, they realized that it wasn't about killing Dumbledore instead.

It was about punishing Lucius.

Despite all his faults, Lucius did love his son, and now his son was going to be a lamb facing down the mountain lions, set up to do a task that everyone was already certain he had no hope of completing.  And when he failed, he would be punished.

 _This is a death sentence,_ Audra thinks, fingers twitching in her lap, like she might somehow be able to magic them both away where the Dark Lord could not follow him.  Except protecting Draco would mean leaving everyone else open and vulnerable, would leave Narcissa to face it all alone, and Draco would hurt her for that. _the sins of the fathers._

"Him?"  Audra doesn't need to turn her head to know who had spoken.  She can recognize all their voices now, and this one is Dolohov, dripping with disbelief.  Stupidity makes men brave all the time.  "He's going to kill him?"

"Could any of you do it any better?"  

He was waiting for them to answer, knowing that no one would.  No one could do this thing he was asking.  No one was even willing to try, no matter how much they claimed to love him.

But that's perfect for her.

"I could."  Audra's voice rings out, and down the table, she could see her mother's hand reach out to her, a compulsive movement that is stifled almost as soon as it begins.  "You know that I could."  She leans across the table to get closer to him, letting him look in her in the eyes, feel how much she wants to serve him.  It's amazing what you can make other people feel, once you have a little practice.  "Let me help him."

 

 

Draco's practically crying.

He had been remarkably calm throughout the rest of the night, even if he was pale and sweating, but here, in the relative safety of his room, he seems to be losing it.  "I can't do it."  He sat down on the bed like his legs had been kicked out from under him, head in his hands.  "I can't do it, he knows that I can't- this is only because of my father, all because of it, and I can't, I just can't, Audra."

Audra crouched down in front of him, ripping his arms away.

"Shut up."  She says it strongly enough that it seems to shock him into silence.  "Don't you know that they're always listening?"

She could tell him that this is what the Dark Lord wants.  That he likes to feed off of this kind of reaction, the pain and the fear, that he revels in it.  But she doesn't, just keeps crouching in front of him until he's calm enough to lift his face and look her in the eye.

"I know you can't do it.  Not alone.  But that's why you have me."  This is a conflict of interest at best, but she couldn't stomach the thought of leaving Draco to face this by himself when she knew that she could stop it.  "Alright?"  He falls off the bed and into her, knocking her off her feet, and by the time she regains her balance he is clutching at her the way Harry had done, the way Ginny had, the way that Audra used to do to Vance.  It hurts, so she shoves him away, dragging them both to their feet.

"I've got a plan."  She doesn't.  "Everything's going be fine."  A lie.  "Just trust me."  

_Don't._


	10. Chapter 10

"You knew."   He must have known she was coming, because when she blasts open the door to his office so hard that it makes everything on his room shake, Dumbledore doesn't even look up, just taps his quill on the piece of parchment he was reading and rubs at the bridge of his nose.  "You knew they were going to kill you, and that's why you have me there."  Audra crosses the room to the desk, footsteps heavy on the floor.  "To save you."

She was so proud of herself for figuring it out.  So relieved that she finally has a plan, a course of action, a reason for doing all the things she had done.  An excuse, because here, finally, was proof that she was doing it all on Dumbledore's orders.  All of it for the greater good.

( _He talks about the greater good a lot.  Like, you kill two nameless, faceless people to save the face of your revolution.  You snap the neck of your pet bird to keep your cover, though you don't understand how not killing it would have blown it.  You pretend that you are something horrible even though you are only trying to make the right side come out on top.)_

 _(But,_ that voice keeps whispering, _are you really on the right side if they make you do such awful things?_ )

"Not exactly."  He finally looks up from the paper and gives her his full attention, folding his hands into a steeple underneath his chin.  His eyes, normally sparkling over the tops of his half-moon spectacles, are somber.  "They're going to try to kill me.  And you're not going to stop them."

"You're just going to die?"  Audra knew he was old, and she wasn't young enough to think that the people you care about are going to be around forever.  She knew that someday, eventually, there would come a time where they did not have a Dumbledore there to lead them.  It was just that until now, that time had seemed so far off into the future that they didn't have to think about it.  "And you expect me to just step back and let them kill you?"

She won't.  She's followed orders from everyone- from Mr. Weasley, from McGonagall and Fred and Harry, she's listened to the Dark Lord and grit her teeth through whatever he had asked her to do, played along with Emmeline and Bellatrix and lied to Clary through her teeth, all the way back from when she was little and did whatever Mom and Dad told her without complaint, believed in everything they said just because she didn't know better.

Audra knew better now.  And she wasn't going to let someone like Dumbledore die, not when she's there to stop it.

"Give me some credit, Audra."  There's a flash of pride in hearing him say her first name, the respect enclosed in those small syllables, like he might address one of his colleagues or a family friend.  "I am harder to kill than that."

"But that wasn't it."  She sunk down into the chair, sinking into the cushions like an invisible hand had shoved her down.  "That's not the thing I'm waiting for."

"No."  He looks weary.  Weary and old, and sick, but maybe that's just because she knows what is hiding underneath the sleeve of his robes, how his arms has blackened and withered, the curse rotting away at every part of him.  She and Snape had slowed it down, but they could not contain it.  "That's not it."

"And when's that going to happen?"  She stuck her hands under her thighs and pressed her weight onto them, tried to give herself something to focus on, some way to be grounded and not spiral off into a thousand what ifs.  "A week from now?  A month?  This year, next year?"  She dug her nails into her skin.  "You expect me to keep doing this for that long?  Just killing people, and hurting people, and lying?"

"You're quite good at it."  His normally gentle expression became stern.  "I've heard about the fight club."

"It's voluntary." _Not that I have to defend myself._   "They aren't doing anything they don't want to."

"It's vicious."

"It's _fun._ "  

They both sit there for a moment, staring across the desk at one another.  Dumbledore's the first to look away, turning back to his papers.  "You worry me, Ms. Stanton."  He ruffles through the pages, and she catches sight of Molly's handwriting, a report on something or another.  She wants to tell him that he should commit it to memory and then burn it, hide any evidence that it may have existed.  That the only one that anybody can trust is themselves.  "About what will become of you.  How do you think you're going to live when this war is over?"

_Could you exist without a war?  Would you know what to do with yourself when there is nothing to fight against, no dying light to rage at, nothing to hang onto with this white knuckle grip that you've got on everything that you love?_

"How long?"  She notices she is grinding her teeth and stops.  "When do I get to stop?"

"You don't get to stop.  No one like you ever gets to stop.  Do you know why?"  Audra shakes her head no, but she can't focus.  She is still thinking about how she cannot speak freely, about everything she is hiding, and how people are always, always listening.  "Because you're the best.  Because you've got power pouring out of you, and you need to use it, even when you aren't sure it's the right thing."

"It's not the right thing."  There's a space on his desk that is lighter than the rest of it, and Audra is certain that had she come only months earlier, there would have been some instrument sitting there.  Harry probably smashed it.  "You know this, what I'm doing, could never be the right thing."

She wanted to tell him everything that she had done in order to prove herself worthy, the people she had hurt in the name of the greater good.  Wanted to hold her hands out to him, make him look down at her palms and see if he can find the blood lining the cracks, to absolve her of her sins once and for all.  She wants something to fight, something to punch, needs that dying light to rage again even when it is inevitable, and she's not going to lose, damn it, she has gone too far and risked too much to have it all been for nothing.

"We're doing what we have to.  Not what's right."   He smiles at her, but he does not look kind anymore.  "Despite what everyone told you, there is nothing righteous about playing the hero."

 _Don't call me that,_ she thinks, but it is an argument she does not want to start.  "How do you get through it?

"Day by day."  He spreads out his hands, and when the sleeves trail on the desk, she can see that the rot has spread halfway to his elbow.  It's going faster than they had expected, and he had not told them it had worsened.

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," she adds, quoting something that Clary used to say all the time, and that reminder hurt, because she has not seen Clary since that night she ran from her parents.  She wants to see her.  It might make her feel better.

Dumbledore smiles like she had said something insightful, steeples his fingers again, and this time, he watches her all the way out.

 


	11. September

They've got a plan.

She and Draco had spent nights sitting up in his bedroom, him spread out eagle-armed against his champagne colored carpet and her hanging backwards out of the window, arms stretching out like her fingers might be able to catch some of the fog she can feel brushing against her skin.  It had scared him, the first time she had done it, but after the hours passed into the early morning and their days grew numbered without them getting any better ideas, he stopped looking at her like she might fall and started looking like he might jump after her.

"How do you think he's going to kill me?"  Draco's a morbid little thing.  Audra hadn't noticed it, before, back when she thought he was all talk and empty threats, but she supposes being told to kill or be killed makes someone grow up faster they were meant to.  She should know.  

"You think he'll do it himself?"  The Dark Lord doesn't like to make personal visits.  Won't dirty his hands.  Audra doubts that Draco will be that important.

"Maybe it'll be you."  He twists his head to look at her, pale cheek against pale carpet.  There's a twist to his voice that makes it sound like he's mocking her, daring her to say the things they are both thinking, but it falls a little flat.   Mostly, he just sounds resigned.  "Good little soldier, following orders."

Audra thinks he knows more than he's meant to.  Suspects, anyways.  It could be dangerous, and not just for her.

"He's not going to kill you."  She flings herself away from the bannister, away from the night air, and lets the window panes slam close with a flick of her wand.  They close harder than she meant them to, banging against the oak, and the glass cracks.   Before, she would have repaired it, but now she doesn't bother- Narcissa has gotten used to the trail of debris that she leaves in her wake.  "You know why?"

"Why's that?"  

"Because I'm on your side.  And because I always win."  Clary would kill it hubris, tell her that in the old stories, the gods would strike you down for something like that.  Audra isn't scared. _Let them try._   "Besides,"  She sinks down to the floor beside him, and digs her fingers up the knuckles in the fluff of the carpeting, watches her hands fall away.  "If it was me, I'd make sure it wouldn't hurt."

He nods like it's actually a comfort, and then straightens up, pulls his limbs back in like he is putting himself back together.  "Alright then."  He shakes his hair out.  It is long and hanging loose around his face, not sleeked back like it always is in school.  It makes him look younger, thinner.  "What's your plan, Ms. badass?"

(He started that nickname two weeks ago, when he caught her out in the apple orchard, blasting the rotting apples apart and smashing the fallen ones underneath her dragon leather boots.  She hadn't bothered to tell him that she had broken more things, and this seemed safer.  Less permanent.  Less likely to leave a scar, when it was only dying fruit.)

"I don't know yet."  It's like living in clouds, his life, where nothing could hurt you because everything was safe.  Or it had been, anyways.  "Just wait and see."

 

 

 

In the end, it doesn't take her as much effort to figure out how to kill the greatest wizard in the world as she thought.

In the end, all it takes is a trip to Diagon Alley where she would walk past the twin's shop on the guise of buying new robes because she had never gotten to see it before.  In the end, it was only a half formed thought that sent her feet turning toward Knockturn Alley, and it was only a hump-backed witch shoving her into the brick wall that drew her eye toward the dusty window of Borgin and Burkes.

Emmeline had been with her.  "Are you alright?"  She's got her hand on Audra's elbow, voice loud and eyes too wide in her face, like after everything, she might actually believe that Audra could have been hurt by an elbow to the side.  "What's wrong?"

"Nothing,"  Audra heard herself say, but she doesn't really pay attention, because she is too busy chasing the shadow of a thought that has not yet revealed itself, chipping away the doubt and the reasons it might not work to find a way that it would.

After all, the worst attacks that you can't see coming.

 

 

Audra's the one to take him to catch the train.

Draco had told his mother it was so they could go over the plans, but Audra knew the truth- it was protect her.  Protect his mother from the stares and the whispers and the hands over the mouths that would not hide the way that their lips snarled and twisted and gaped.  Protect her from the last good bye where she would not be able to hold him as tightly as she would like, where she could not cry and say that she loved him, where she would have to watch her every move and breath and blink.  It was a sort of kindness that Audra had never been capable of, the sort of subtle protection that she had never even thought to give.

"You're going to be fine."  Audra isn't one for sentiment anymore, but she hugs him anyways, feeling the way the points of his bones press into her.  She hadn't realized that he had gotten so thin.  "This is going to be fine."

"It isn't going to work."  His hands were trembling, and his eyes, not used to hiding anything, were scared.  "It was never going to work."

"You've got other plans.  More ideas."  Ideas with too many gaps in the plans, where they would go wrong and lost and spin off in a direction he had not considered.  Ideas filled with the possibility of collateral damage.  "Mine is only a last resort."

"A back up."

"It doesn't hurt."  She presses a parchment with directions into his hand, one that they had worked with Borgin to make over the past two weeks under the watchful eye of Greyback for extra incentive.  "Dying.  Not the way you're planning, and not for a man like him."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"It should, actually."  She doesn't know how to tell him that there were different ways to die, ways to go gently and ways to where it felt like your life was being wrenched from you, like you were being skinned, turned inside out.  "And for Merlin's sake-,"  She turned up the collar on his coat and smoothed down his hair.  "Try to look like you know what you're doing."

 _It's just a game, Draco,_ she thought, watching his retreating back until the engine's steam swallowed him up. _And it's one you need to learn how to play as fast as possible._

 

 

(She catches sight of Fred for a moment, a heart beat's time, one strangled half breath.  He's surrounded in steam up to the waist, cloak flying out behind him and wrapping at his ankles.   His face is caught in the middle of a laugh, hand stretched out to Ginny, and Audra can pinpoint the moment he sees her- the way his face goes slack, how he scrambles to keep the smile on his face.

 _He's gotten paler,_ she thinks, because the freckles stand out more and his cheekbones were never that prominent, so he had gotten thinner, too.  He's just as afraid as everyone else, and it shows. _We're all growing up so fast._

He turns away from her.  He turns away from her and she feels her heart wrench, her stomach twist, like every cell in her body was reaching out to him, stretching out of her skin to get even on millimeter closer.  She wants to call after him just to stop the ache, but that's not possible.  There are so many things that she cannot claim as her own anymore.)

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

She's gotten used to screams.

( _Sort of.  Not really.  More like she's learned to ignore it, the way that they climb and take up more space in this little cement and stone room than any sound had the right to, how they never truly disappear, just echo, rebound and rebound and rebound until it is all she can hear, even in her sleep.)_

It's louder than she ever thought one little noise could be, especially at the end.  She thought that as time went on and they broke down, started to give in, that they would get quieter, softer, slower, but they don't- it's like every part of them wants to hang onto the last bit of life they can wrench out of their body, no matter how bad it hurts.

( _They scream the most at the end, like they are trying to make someone pay attention, like if they make enough noise their names will not fade into oblivion.  Everyone had taught her that death was gentle, like sinking into sleep or falling into the arms of a friend you had forgotten that you had, but that wasn't true- death was a menace.  It was blood and guts and pain, pale skin and trembling lips and the color red staining the cracks in your teeth, the life being wrenched from your skin and thrown onto the floor with a_ splat, _violent and terrible and nothing like falling back into the cover of quiet._ )

Audra spends a lot of her time in the basement now, making these screams spin out into the air like they're signs of a job done right, like she was collecting check marks for her to-do list.  Like if they were louder enough, harsh enough, shrill enough, she could exchange them all for a gold star, like she used to be able to do in Flitwick's class when she passed all her spell checks.   She's become quite good at it.

( _But she always good, even when she was hanging back.  Everyone on this earth has a knack for causing other people pain, even when they try their best to rage against it.  It's more like she's gotten good at everything else that comes with it- laughing when they beg, smiling instead of flinching, turning away instead of giving that last gift of mercy when it is clear that they cannot take anymore.   She is bleeding away her humanity, scream by scream by scream, and soon there will be nothing left._ )

"You've done so good for me,"  He says, and it is sick, how easy it is for her to accept that, like this is a badge of honor instead of a mark of shame.  The Audra that she can remember being would want to recoil, but this one, the one who comes to dinner with someone else's blood still lining the cracks of her palms, does not know how to be ashamed of finally becoming strong.   "You're not going to go on to disappoint me, will you?"

His hand slips down to nestle under her jaw, tilting her face upward so she has no choice to look him in the eyes.  Audra still feels herself shaking under his touch, because he is a terrible thing, a horrible thing- elongated fingers, too-tight skin, red eyes, two slits for a nose and teeth that flash like he's considering whether or not to bite- but she does not shy away, just lets herself be moved like a puppet, her hair falling back from her face in a river of curls.

She is on her knees on the carpet, back to the fire.  The others are all in masks, ringing around them in a half circle, and one by one they would be called to face him, would bow before him like he's some sort of god and not just a twisted shadow of what used to pass for a man.

 _Maybe he is a god,_ she thinks, because even her thoughts seem to be tinged with blasphemy now. _It takes a god to create pain like this.  To have power like he does._

"Never."  Her voice cracks on the first try, and Audra feels herself sink a little, resting in his hands.  "Never, my Lord."

 

 

 

The shift was slow and silent, where she went from a teenage rebel to someone that was actively taking part in the Dark Lord's plans, pushing him further towards success without even realizing when it happened.  Audra hadn't meant to- it was just that he would ask for more and more and more even when she had nothing left to give, and this is not a life where she had the option to say no.

"How can you do this?"  She is back at Snape's, staring down the hill at the disgusting muggle town where he grew up, the grass gone and the earth brown and muddy, like it was all some giant bruise.  "How can we possibly keep telling ourselves that this is the right thing?"

 _There is so much blood,_ she wants to say, _so much blood and so many lasts breaths and I see it all in my dreams, all these people I have hurt and the ones I abandoned, and there is only so long before the cause stops justifying the means._

"Is it the right thing?"  He has his back to her, combing through one of the old leather bound journals he keeps.  His face is hidden by the sulfuric smoke between them, a side effect of their last attempt at prolonging Dumbledore's existence, like they might be able to burn away the infection.  "You tell me."

"I thought it was."  She lets the curtain fall closed with a flutter, makes a mental note to clean them the next time she's here.  They're high quality, a thick black velvet, but he doesn't care of them, so there's  fine layer of cobwebs collecting on it, like macabre lace.  "For the greater good, and all that."

Snape stares at her from across the room.  "Is that why you're doing all of this?"  He throws the rest of the ingredients into the cauldron and the heat snaps at it.  "For the promise of a better world?"

No.

She wasn't.

Maybe it would be easier if she was, where she could look at the white hot heat of a clear conscience and know that this is only a means to an end, something that she has to do in order to get to that better day that they all keep dreaming of, but that's not why she's here.  She's here because she loves a boy that had been dragged into this war because of his family and his ideals, who has a target painted on his back, and somehow, she has suddenly found all these people that she cannot bear to be torn away from.  Audra could not stomach life without them, so she'll grit her teeth and do what it takes to make this world safe for them to walk through without constantly looking over their shoulders.

And Snape?  Snape was here because of a mistake, because of a home that was not happy and a girl he loved and because he was only a kid who was tired of being laughed at, and by the time he realized that envy gained by fear was not enough, his lord had killed the only thing he loved and left him with a soul racked with guilt and a desperate need to make up for it, to make things right, to make it so if there was a life after this one he would be able to look at her with his arms held out in a plea for forgiveness and find that his hands were no longer stained with her blood.

It's a nice dream, she supposes, but she's starting to think that there was no reasoning that could free her from the things she'd done.

 

 

 

They operate in the dark.

(Mostly.  Sometimes Emmeline likes to go out in the daylight just because she seems to think its more fun, collecting people out of thin air during a time that no one excepts the monsters to come for them, and maybe to prove that they're just _that_ good, stealing people from their homes in broad daylight, out in front of god and everyone.  But today, they're working at night.)

"Merlin."  Emmeline grabs her wand from her boots and twirls it between her fingers.  Audra's always expecting her to drop it, but she never does.  "Kind of a shit heap, isn't it?"

It was.  The grass in the lawn was so tall and tangled that they had to fight their way through it, and when they did reach the house, it was just as abandoned- one gutter was falling off, roof tiles were missing, and the screen door had a gaping hole slashed across it.

"Likes the simple life, I guess."  Audra turned her face back to face the wind, hoping to find some relief from the air that had settled down around them, hot and humid.  "Each to their own."

"It's a pig sty,"  She says, and then not much else, because they are banging through the door and into the living room.  It doesn't take long to find who they were looking for- he was slouched in a falling apart recliner watching a muggle movie box, drinking his way through what looked like his third beer.

"Ladies."  He raised his drink to them in a parody of a toast, revealing a row of crooked teeth when he smiled at them.   "What can I do for you?"

"Not us."  Emmeline circles him like she's some sort of vulture circling her prey, like he's already dead.  "But I think you know who we're here for."

They don't bother to wear masks.  Audra knows if that was something that the others picked up on, when they came to visit them, how sure they were that the people they come to visit would never give the world their names.  So sure they were going to win.

(Emmeline wanted to dress up, let someone slip out, just the once.  Put on some costume, give themselves a cool name.  Superheroes in reverse.)

"Yes."  He doesn't get up, but he doesn't make a move for the wand sitting beside him, either, just flips the channel on the remote, like this happens to him every night.  "I've got some idea."

 

 

 

"I thought I'd be his favorite forever."

Audra jumped.  She'd just dropped off the man that she and Emmeline went to get, and now she was lurking outside the dungeon door, waiting to see if Wormtail would chicken out again.  She hadn't expected anyone to come down to check on her.

"You're still his favorite."  Audra turned to face Bellatrix, who was digging her overgrown nails into the rough surface of the stone, trying to pick off a piece.  "You're the best servant he's got."

"I used to be."  There's a bitterness in her voice that Audra had never heard before, completely devoid of the fanatic devotion that was normally dripping with her every word.  "Then you came along.  And you were better."

"I didn't mean to."  Audra scrambled to think of a way to respond to this, because of all the roadblocks she thought she might come across during her time here, she didn't think a fellow death eater would be one of them.  "I only wanted-,"

"I know what you wanted,"  Bellatrix snapped, and Audra could hear her nails scratching against the stone.  "It doesn't matter, anyways."

 _I highly doubt that you know,_ Audra thought, thinking of Fred and the people she hurt and her poor little falcon. _I don't think you  know anything about me at all._


	13. Chapter 13

By the time she can sneak away, she is three hours late.

"I'm sorry,"  She bursts out, as soon as she heaves herself up onto the tree house floor.  The motion is so sudden it makes Fred jump, and even though he normally tries to pretend that nothing shocks him, this time he only stands there and stares at her, hands hanging at his sides.  "I'm sorry, I tried, but Emmeline-,"

She had this whole explanation ready, but before she can get more than a few words out, Fred has crossed the few feet of space between them and grabbed her by the waist, pulling Audra up against him and kissing her like he never thought he would see her again, like if this was a movie this would be their first kiss and their good-bye moment all wrapped into one.

"Hey."  Audra says, when they finally break apart and he loosens his grip on her.  He has ducked down to rest his head in the dip where her neck meets her shoulders, and beneath her hands, Audra can feel him shaking.  "It's alright."  She tries to make him look at her but he only leans further against her, making her scrabble for balance on the wooden walls.  "I'm okay, Fred.  I'm here now."

"I was just thinking.  About how late it was getting.  And I kept telling myself that it was taking you so long because you were being safe, but then I thought about how what if that wasn't it."  When he finally does look at her, its like his whole face is made of water- watering eyes and wavering smile and a face that has been hollowed out by months of fear.  "And about how even when you did get here, there would still be another time, and another time, and another time after that, where I would have to sit here and tell myself that everything was fine, that _you_ were fine, but not really knowing, because I've actually got no idea where you are or what you're doing or when I'm going to see you again, you know?"

She knew.  She knew because she thinks that about him, sometimes, when she hears about another battle with the Order or listens to the name Weasley be used like it means something filthy, when she sits through meetings where they try to tally up who Harry's closest protectors are and the names of his friends crop up.  But she also knows that however bad it is for her it is infinitesmally worse for Fred, who watches her leave every night without complaint, who takes her word that she is taking no extra risks, who knows she is doing things that would hurt him to hear about but must trust her that it is for all the right reasons.

Audra loves him for that, for feeling how he does and not once telling her that it isn't fair.  But she knows somewhere, deep down, there is a part of him that hates her for it.

"And what about the last time?"  He is talking louder than they ever have in this tree house, because despite all the charms he and George have placed around it, all the defenses that Audra herself has constructed, they still do not trust that it will stay hidden forever.  "That time that I sit here forever and you don't show up, and I find out a weeks from then that you never were going to come, because you got hurt doing something I didn't even know was happening?"

"I'm sorry."  Audra doesn't cry often, but if she had it in her, she would be crying now, for herself and this boy who loves her more than he should and all the things that keep pulling her apart.  "I'm sorry that it has to be this way."

"I know."  He presses her back to him, like he can't bear to even have her that far away.  "I know it has to be."

He's pressing his lips to her forehead, over and over again, and she has her hands knotted in the front of his flannel shirt, holding on so tight that the buttons are digging into her palms.  "Maybe we just don't talk about it?"  She looked up at him (he is still taller than her, the only thing that has stayed the same) and he shakes his head.  His eyes are closed but the tears are still slipping out.  "Just for one night, Fred.  One night where we pretend that everything's okay."

"What's left?"  When he laughs, the sound is hollow.  "All we are is this war."

"No." _That's wrong.  This war is all I am, maybe all I've ever been.  You're the one who always existed outside of it, who still is outside of it, with the shop and you family and George._   "I loved you before this war and I'm going to love you after.  Remember that?  Remember everything- Hogsmeade and Myrtle's stall and nights on your roof where you showed me constellations that I would never remember, how much we cared about each other even before we knew what it was that we were feeling?"  She shakes him, just one sharp tug on the front of his shirt.  "With or with out the war, this would have happened."

"I know."  He scrubs his hand across his face like that might wash all his worries away.  "I know, and I'm sorry."

"This is the only thing that I know is real anymore."  It's the truth that Audra keeps avoiding, about how when you live a lie, you start losing sight of where the story ends and you began, like they might be blurring to become one and the same.  "You're the only thing I believe in."

 

 


	14. Muggle-Baiting

When Audra gets back from meeting with, its late enough that she doesn't bother sneaking in, just walks right in through the front door.   She should have known better.

"A bit late out for a walk, isn't it?"  The voice makes her jump, but a moment later she realizes that its only Draco, slumped down in one of the leather chairs and staring in the fire.  He's not even looking at her, just watching the flames jump like he's deciding whether or not to dive into them.  "What were you doing?"

"Nothing."  Audra's normally a better liar, but she had been caught off guard, and she hadn't expected to come back and be interrogated by Draco, of all people.  She hadn't even known she was here- he must have snuck away from Hogwarts.  Audra couldn't wait to hear what crackpot cover story Crabbe and Goyle had to memorize this time.  "What are you doing up?"

"Nothing."  He turns the word into a snarl when he says it, making it clear that he thought her answer was a load of crap but wasn't going to press her.  "You're awfully dressed up for a midnight stroll."

Audra didn't want to talk, but she didn't want to leave him sitting alone in the dark, either, so she throws herself down onto the floor beside him.  "I went out with Emmeline."  She felt herself go into a half shrug, hoping it would be enough.  "That a crime?"

"Probably."  Draco gave her a smile, and Audra snorted.  Her time spent in the dueling ring seemed to be public knowledge.  "Haven't seen that necklace in a while."

It only takes a second for him to nod down at her, but its enough time for Audra to figure out what he was talking about and what a huge mistake it was- Fred's fingers fumbling in the darkness, the chill of the chain being laid around the neck, the weight of it familiar and awkward all at once, her not-so-gentle reminder that he would have to take it back before the night was over.

But he hadn't.  Taken it back, that was.  And here she was, sitting here on the Malfoy's sitting room floor with a necklace Fred had gave her dangling side ways off her shoulders, a picture of her and Emmeline and Clary on one side of the locket and a picture of the twins on the other.  Damning evidence, really, should anyone ask to see it.

"I felt like wearing it."  Her fingers are tapping on the carpet and Audra forces herself to be still.  Calm.  Unbothered, like she was willing to snap the chain in half and throw it into the fire if he asked her to.  And she would, if that was what it took.  "Pretty, isn't it?"

She holds it out to him by the chain, letting the charm turn and twist, shimmering in the firelight. _Hide in plain sight,_ her father had told her, and that's exactly what she was doing now.

Draco shrugged, rolled his eyes, already bored.  "I suppose."  He slipped off the chair and curled up on the floor beside her.  "Nothing's working."

Audra doesn't ask him what he was talking about.  She didn't have to, and really, she didn't want to know what he had done and what damage he had caused to people who had accidently got in his way.  Those weren't her plans, which meant that they weren't her problems.   

"One of them will."  She stares into the fire and wonders what might happen if she reached out, how bad it would hurt to feel the sparks biting at her skin.  If it might be better to feel pain, just so she can feel anything at all.  "Just give it time."

 

 

 

When Mr. Weasley talked about incidents at his job, he always used the term muggle-baiting.

Muggle baiting, as in, people with magic screwing with muggles just because they could for fun.  Shrinking keys.  Exploding toilets.  Invisible cats that melt away into thin air like they've found themselves in Wonderland.  When he told those stories, Audra thought they were harmless, sometimes even funny, even though she could see how the sentiment behind them was wrong.

This, the things she was doing, was not like that, even if the general idea was the same.

"Go kill some muggles for me, will you dearies?"  Bellatrix throws herself into one of the chairs between Emmeline and Audra, and that's annoying, because they were just planning to go shopping and she knows it.  "Something flashy.  We need to send a message to the ministers, as publicly as possible, and I'm just not in the mood."

It's a strange thing, when you get to a point in your life where someone telling you that they aren't in the mood for murder is something that you've grown accustomed to.

"Okay."  Emmeline stands up, shovels the rest of her fruit salad into her mouth in one go.  "You coming, Audra?"

She isn't even looking at her when she says it.  Emmeline's actually still walking, moving towards the mantle to grab her coat and her daggers, so confident that Audra was going to be falling into step at any moment.

For a second, Audra wonders what might happen if she says no.  If she could play it off as being angry, being tired, being bored with it all.  If she could really lie that well.  But in the end, she gets up and plays along, just like they knew she would.

"Yeah."  She puts her fork down, pushes the breakfast away.  "Just give me a minute."

 

 

 

It's a hospital.  It's grey and big and ugly, but its a hospital, filled with people who could not defend themselves, with sick people and elderly people and children and nurses who could not possibly get them all out.

"It's a hospital Emmeline."  Audra grabs at her shoulder, and the spell ricochets off to the side, hits a random shop and makes the front window explode.  Somewhere, somebody screams.  "There are kids in there."

There are moments where she can feel the disconnect, where she can't really let herself breathe around Fred because of everything she had done, but she does not really fit with Emmeline because of the things she isn't willing to do.  This is one of those times, where the blank stare that Audra receives is just another sign of how lost they have become.

"So?"  Emmeline raises her wand again and Audra steps in front, flinching, half afraid she might curse her just to get it over with.

"It's murder."

"I don't know if you noticed,"  Emmeline says, stamping her foot.  She's impatient, because there is sirens sounding in the distance and smoke billowing up beside them.  "But that's kind of what we do now."

"this is different."  Audra is willing to beg.  "Please, Emmeline.  Just pick somewhere else."

"This is what we have to do."  Emmeline seems upset, but she doesn't look sorry.  Just like she doesn't want to fight with Audra over this.  "If you can't do it,  I can."  It's so similar to that night in the ministry with Vance, where Audra couldn't do it but they didn't get the _why_ even when it should have been impossible not to.  Emmeline catches at her arms, pushing her wand away.  "Let me do this for you."

"No."  Audra says, but it is not loud enough, a whisper when it should have been an outcry, and the spell casts.  The explosion is so large it rocks the ground underneath, and the screams start instantly.  "No!"

"It's too late,"  Emmeline is saying, trying to hold her back, trying to calm her down and tell her that everything is okay, that it's fine, that she was not the one who had done this, that these were only muggles and it didn't matter, but Audra is not listening, she is crying, crying and fighting and now she is running, right through those automatic doors that do not work anymore and into the flames.

 

 

 

Save the ones you can save.  Burn the things you need to burn.  

 _And this,_ Audra thinks, swerving around yet another nurse and patient pair to barrel down the hallway, _is a little bit of both._

There would be no saving them all.  She could only get a few, helping them out through the nearest exits and helping nurses gather the more critical patients.  She herds kids down hallways and frees the therapy dogs from their leashes, picks up an elderly woman and hurdles down the steps.  Now she is only following screams, desperate to get to the source of them, this one a direct result of the explosion.

It's a man.

(Boy, really.  Her age.  Fred's age.  Looks a bit like Fred, too, same hair and freckles only thinner, much thinner, like he might snap in two at the slightest pressure.)

He's trapped under a bit of the ceiling, having been sitting at his computer when the building all fell apart under the force of Emmeline's magic.  It doesn't look like anything is hurt but his leg, and this is doable, fixable, something from this mess that she can savage.

"Hold on!"  She dances at the edge of the debris, trying to get a better glimpse of him.  "I'm going to help you."

And she does.  Sort of.  Later, she would wonder if this really is help, what she's doing, when he would be left with more questions than answer and the constant fear of what he does not know, always looking over his shoulder for people like her.  But right now she is only thinking of getting him out at whatever price necessary, so she levitates it all off of him and grabs him under the arm, drags him away before letting it all crash down again.

It might have done more harm than good.  She can feel the building rock once more, hear the screams reach a new height.  Still, this one is safe.

"You're okay."  She means it to be comforting, giving him a shoulder to lean on as they race away from the growing smoke.  "You're safe."

"Who are you?"  He wrenches away from her, stumbles against the wall.  "What did you just do?"

They don't have time for this.  They don't have time, and the smoke is getting thicker, her lungs are burning and eyes are stinging and she does not want this one to die just because he is an idiot, so she pulls out her wand and blasts one of the shrieking, blinking fire alarms into a million pieces.

"I'm a witch.  I can do magic.  It's supposed to be a secret, but it's not like you're going to tell anyone about it, so will you just let me help you?"  She holds an arm out to him, and he stares at it without moving.  "Please?"

It's the please that does it.  He latches onto her and she drags him down the long hallway, up all the steps until they are on the ground floor even though he is much too heavy.  When he is finally out on the sidewalk, she turns to leave him, and he catches at her wrist, trying to stop her from going back inside.

"Wait."  In the light, he doesn't look like Fred at all.  "Why are you going back there?"

"Because I have to."  She tears her hand away.  "Because I'm the one who's done all this."

 

 

By the time she gives up, she only stops because a pair of firemen grab her by the arms and drag her away, one of them pinning her to the hood of an ambulance.

"It's done!"  He's got his hand knotted in the back of her hair.  "It's over!  It's over.  You've done everything that you've can."

 _Not everything,_ she thinks, even as she waves him away, promises that she's fine, that's she's calm. _Not enough._

She can barely breathe, and they are trying to talk her into letting the paramedics take a look at her, but Audra pushes them away, ducking through a row of cars to slide out of the parking lot and back towards the alleyway where she and Emmeline had stood, leaning on the wall for support.  Her fingers claw at the brick but it still doesn't help her stand, so she sinks to her knees, eyes streaming, still stinging from all the smoke.

There's a hand on her shoulder, pointed nails digging into her skin, drawing her upright.  Audra knows its Emmeline, but that doesn't stop her from throwing her off, whirling around and pointing a wand at her with a shaking hand before she has to turn to the side and cough for so long that she doesn't think she's going to stop.

Emmeline doesn't look impressed.  "You good?"  

Audra doesn't answer, just slumps down on the pavement between the two dumpsters.   No one can see her, but she can see them- the news trucks rolling up, the first responders, the people who are just their to watch.  

Emmeline wrinkles her nose but she sits down beside her, wand dangling from her hands.  "What was that, Audra?"  She only calls Audra by her name when she's angry.  "I thought you knew what you were getting into."

Audra coughs, spits on the ground, and when Emmeline reaches a hand out to steady her, this time she doesn't turn away.  "I told you,"  It hurts to get the words out.  "I don't hurt kids."

It wasn't a good enough answer.  "Someone saw you."  Emmeline stood up and brushed the grime from her jeans, staring down at her.  "You'll be all over the news."

"Whatever."

"Everyone will know."  Sometimes, it's like the two of them are playing a game where they are trying to guide each other through a mine field without either of them knowing where the explosives are, or even if they're real.  Audra would have thought they'd be better at it by now.  "There won't be secrets anymore."

Fred will know, is what she's saying.  George, Clary, the Weasley's, Dumbledore, and even if some of them thought that her trying to save as many as she could was enough, even if they believed her that this wasn't what she wanted, even _if_ they held with what they had been saying about the greater good, not all of them would.  Fred wouldn't.  He doesn't have patience for grey areas.  None of them do, really.

This time, Audra doesn't want to deal with this.  Doesn't want to be the one to make the tough calls.  But that's not an option, so she gets to her feet, swipes the tears away from her eyes.  "There's always going to be secrets, Emmeline."

 

 

 

There will always be secrets, that's what she said, but what she didn't say is secrets only stay secret if someone is willing to do what it takes to bury them deep.  Audra is, even if she tells Emmeline she doesn't care, so that night she slips out of the front doors and past the iron gates and apparated back to the muggle town, hoping no one notices the smoke still clinging to her skin.

She doesn't go to the hospital.  She goes to the police station, slips through the doors and edges around the front counter until she makes it to the back hallway, slides her way into one of the back rooms where all the evidence was located.  It's amazing what people are willing to look past when they don't bother to really see it, and with Audra covered in a disillusionment charm, there was no way they would find her when there were so many other, more important things to focus on.

Like tracking down the girl in the video.

"What's she doing?"  The woman at the screen squints and leans closer, like it would make the grainy image clearer.  "Why would you run straight into this?"

"Maybe it was an accident."  The other guy shrugged, swirled his coffee around as if that would make it taste better.  "Or it went off to soon and one of her friends were inside?"

Audra wants to give them a choice.  To pull out her wand and place it at one of their temples like it was a gun and this is as simple as a bank robbery, to tell them that they could hand over the video or they could die.  To give them an option, however slight, of staying quiet and staying alive.  But that would leave room for error, and people, even when they are muggles and helpless at your hands, are so unpredictable.

She wants to tell them to run, but what she ends up saying is "Avada kedavra," wincing at the sudden rush of light and stepping over their bodies when they hit the floor, wondering when _I did what I had to do_ will stop being a good enough answer.

 


	15. Chapter 15

It worked for a while, the Clary and Emmeline thing.

Apparently, when Clary said that she was good at charms, she meant that she was _really_ good at charms, so when the time came for her to keep herself a secret, she created some non-physical version of the secret keeper charm, where the secret keeper was the physical location itself.  Like, if they never let what they had leave the four walls of Clary's apartment, Emmeline would never be able to breathe a word of their relationship to everyone, and Voldemort would never be able to tell who she was in love with or sad about or angry with, so long as those thoughts are about something that happened within the apartment.  It seemed perfect, with the big picture windows and the pink bathtub and tiny kitchen, as if they had finally tricked the universe into letting them be happy.

But they slipped up.

People in love always do.

 

 

"Please,"  Emmeline said, and then she started screaming, the sound rebounding off the walls, and even though it was Audra she was stretching out a hand to, all Audra did was turn her head and squeeze her eyes shut, like not being able to see it meant that it wasn't happening.  "Please."

When she talks, her voice is only a whisper, weak and cracking.  At first, it had been loud, screaming with denial, pleading for mercy, but a body could only take too much before it starts to fade.  Now the only time she can make herself heard is when she screams.

"Are you ready to admit the truth?"  Bellatrix was laughing, leering down at her, her hair falling in a curtain around her face.  Audra wonders if she looks like that, down in the dungeons.  Probably.  They were mirror images of each other.  "What you did with that filthy mudblood?"

Across from her, Narcissa is holding onto the table with a white knuckle grip, but she is not looking away.  She has seen so many terrible things already, maybe this is nothing new.

"Nothing!"  Emmeline was sobbing.  Audra had never seen her cry, not like this, like every part of her mind and soul were breaking into pieces, curling in on herself to protect herself from the next wave of spells.  "I swear, please, I'm telling the truth!"

But she wasn't, and they all knew it.  After all their careful planning and calculations, it seemed that all it took for it to crash and burn was for Emmeline to forget her jacket, and when Clary chased her to the door to get it, her hand crossed over the threshold, into a space that the spell decided was not technically not part of the apartment.

That's all it took.

Just a jacket.  A brush of the fingers.  A kiss on the cheek as Emmeline raced back in time for their weekly death eater meeting and Clary standing in the doorway, watching her.

"You're lying."  Voldemort steepled his fingers and stared down at her, crawling on the ground to clutch at his robes.  "The Dark Lord always knows when you lie, Emmeline."

 _He might kill her,_ Audra thought dully, watching. _This really might be the end._

"The mudblood or me, Emmeline."  He leans forward to peer down at her, and in the dim light from the candles, he looks more snakelike than normal.  "Choose wisely."

"I didn't,"  Emmeline repeats, denying, always denying even though there was no use.  "I swear I didn't."

"A shame."  His lip curled up, and his arm raised, just enough to flick his wand towards her.  "Again."

Audra doesn't know how its possible, but her screams are so much worse than anyone else's.

 

 

Audra had thought about how long she would hold out of Voldemort would find out about Fred.  It was one of those things she can't help thinking about even though she knew she was better off ignoring, like when you were a little kid and couldn't help poking at your loose teeth even though your mother told you not to, so she's had plenty of time to imagine the outcome- whether it would be her mind or her body who gave up first, if she would die at his hand or her aunt's or someone else's, if she would be able to stay strong enough to keep all of the Order's many secrets, to stay strong enough to protect Fred.

She never bothered to think about how Emmeline would react.

"What are you doing down here?"  Emmeline is curled up in the corner, as far back from the door as she can get.  "Come for another chat?"

She was talking about the scene in the living room, where Voldemort got tired of playing with her and turned to Audra for assistance instead.  It seems that whatever her personal breaking point is, she has not reached it yet.  

"No.  I brought you food."  Snuck her food actually.  It's only an apple, and in the darkness, Emmeline misses it when Audra throws it across the room to her, so it only rolls to a stop, bumping against her knees.  "Seems like even prisoners are allowed to eat around here."

"Of course."  In the dark, her eyes seem to large for her face, rimmed with bruises.   "There are better ways to kill someone than starvation."

"Faster ways."  Audra leaned against the door, which would give them a few seconds of warning if someone were to try and burst into the room.  (And by someone, she means Peter.  He likes to visit the prisoners.  Audra's pretty sure Emmeline could still beat him up, wand or not.)  "Not necessarily better."

 _They all have their merits,_ she is thinking, but that's not useful to the conversation and it seems to be coming from someone else's thoughts, anyways.  Sentences like that cannot be her own.

"So you and Clary?"  They've been best friends for as long as Audra can remember, but somehow, the two of them never were able to talk about the things that mattered most to them.  Emmeline could know nothing about Fred, for all of their safety.  And Audra never asked about Clary, first because it was so fragile that she was afraid even that amount of pressure might ruin them, and then because any whispered rumor of a relationship would have put all three of them in danger.  

"I already told you."  Emmeline glares at her.  "There's nothing going on between me and her.  We were friends in school.  I can't change the past."

She had parroted that line ever time anyone had questioned her, said it over and over like she was hoping that eventually, Emmeline would even believe it.

"Don't do that."  Audra wanted to know, suddenly, about the nights at their apartment and their first date and when they first said I love you to each other, all those moments that by rights she should have stayed up late into the night to listen to Emmeline drone on and on about, getting to watch her best friend fall in love for the first time.  And maybe, in return, she would have been able to tell her some things about her and Fred, about nights out on Hogwarts grounds and stolen hours tucked into secret passageways and days at the Burrow, all his grand promises and dreams that he somehow convinced her were real.  "I'm not one of them."

"Aren't you?"  Emmeline dug her nails into the stone.  They weren't long and painted anymore, just splintered down to the quick.  "I really thought we were going to make it."

"I wish you would have."

She did.  Her heart hurts with it, a physical pain of wanting it so bad, like a knot in the stomach.  

"It really was the best apartment."  Emmeline's eyes were closed.  "We found it together, and then she put that spell on it, so as long as we were there, we were free.  Safe, for once, and we filled it with so many things that I knew she was going to love- these oven mitts covered in bumblebees and scented candles and those bath salts she liked, and when I left the smell of the apartment would be clinging to my clothes, and I-,"  The words cut off while she choked on a sob, the sound bursting out of her chest and then being drawn back in just as fast.  "I was stupid to think that it would last."

"You weren't stupid.  You were in love."  Audra couldn't always see the difference.  "You had to try."

"And where'd it get me?"  Emmeline snarled the words at her.  "A cell.  And her, somewhere, not knowing that she's in danger."

"They won't hurt her."  Audra wouldn't let that happen.  "I made a promise, remember?"

(A vow, actually, she and Emmeline both did, an unbreakable on to keep Clary safe no matter which side they found themselves standing on, that they would both push it aside to come to her aid.  Sometimes, when she thinks about it, Clary can feel the spell humming underneath her skin like invisible chains.)

"We all did."  Emmeline's eyes flashed in the darkness, and looking back, Audra would think that this, right there, is the moment that things began to fall apart.  "But promises can be broken."

 

 

 

The best thing to be said is that Emmeline lasted longer than Audra would have thought possible.

She thought, at the end, that Emmeline was going to see her way through it.  Would force her way through the screams and the pain until she just couldn't take anymore, until her body gave up, and then it wouldn't matter what she had done or what she hadn't- she would have kept Clary safe.  

But in the end, really, all it came down to that Emmeline wanted to live.  It's the most human of impulses, and Audra has yet to see a time when someone purposely turns away.

"The Dark Lord is merciful."  Emmeline is spilled down at his feet, broken and bruised, the blood streaming from her open mouth and down into the carpet.  It had only been four days.  Four long, terrible days.  "Mistakes are made.  Failures can be rectified."

"Yes."  Emmeline pushed herself up on one shaking arm, her whole body trembling.  "Please."  It was horrible to see how hard a person can fall.  "I'll do anything."

"Bring her to me.  That girl you love so much."  He's a smart man, Voldemort.  A cruel man.  One who likes his small pleasures just as much as he loves to conquer.  "And you'll be free."

To someone who has known what it means to be locked in a cage, freedom becomes a very wonderous thing.

Audra isn't even all that surprised when she agrees.

 

 

"You can't do this."  

"I have to.  You heard him.  Its either do this or die."  Emmeline whirls around in the middle of stuffing her wand into her pocket, and Audra is sure it is only the fact that her hand got tangled in the fabric that kept Emmeline from throwing a curse in her direction.  "I don't have a choice."

"We always have choices."  Not really.  Not always.  But this time, she does.  Audra knows what she would choose, if this situation were different, if the question was between her and Fred.  "And this isn't the right one, think about her, about Clary, you're really going to do this to her?"

"Like you'd be able to stand your ground."  Behind the cuts and bruises, Emmeline's face was bright red, blotchy.  Anger never had looked good on her.  "Like you would stand there and let him kill you!"

"If it was me or-,"

Audra cut herself short, and Emmeline laughed, throwing her head back.

"Say it."  Her voice was just a hiss, so quiet that even if someone were to be listening at the door, there was no way they would have heard.  "Admit it.  Tell the truth, Audra for once.  Or don't you remember how?"

Audra wanted to tell her the truth.  About Fred and the treehouse and how they were talking about forever in a way that Audra never thought she would get, an after the war kind of forever, the house with a big lawn and three kids and a dog kind of forever, one that Emmeline could have if she would _just. hang. on._   But she can't say that, because that would be giving up secrets, would be putting Fred in danger, and she wouldn't do that for anything in the world, not for Emmeline, not even for Clary.

"You could help me."  This, clearly, was the thing that Emmeline had been trying not to ask this whole time, but now in her desperation the words burst out of her.  "You could help both of us."

"Clary never had a choice in this.  You did."  Audra could barely keep the fear from making her voice shake, as it was, she could only choke the words out.  "And you chose wrong."

 

 

 

Audra had gotten used to being sent of rescue missions where success was determined in a matter of seconds, where any misstep could be the end, where everything had to be perfect or it might be better if she did not try at all.  This was a little like that.

"Clary!"  There would be traces of magic here if anyone cared to look, but Audra was banking on the idea that they would be so hell bent on destruction that neither Emmeline or anyone else who came with her would bother to look.  "Clary, open the door!"

Audra is cursing at the wood, on the verge of blasting it apart when it swings open.  Clary had clearly just woken up, but she was instantly awake, her wand out and eyes darting around the corridor behind her.

"How are you here?"  Her wand is levelled at Audra's throat.  The old Clary had never even been able to kill beetles for her potions, but this was not the same Clary from Hogwarts.  "No one should be able to come here."

"The enchantment is broken."  Audra pushes past her and into the apartment, slamming the open window closed.  "You have to leave."

She pulls the curtain back to squint down at the street below and can just make out seven hooded figures.  There's a great cry that Audra can recognize from Bellatrix and the sky above them lights up with the great shadowy outline of the skull, illuminating the building with a sickly green glow.

"Oh, god."  Clary looks like she is about to be sick but that does not stop her from sinking her arm shoulder deep in the cabinet underneath the sink and emerging with a duffel bag.  "Where's Emmeline?  What's happened to her?"

For a second, the words are on the tip of her tongue, but Audra decides that that is one heart break that she does not have to deliver.  "She's fine.  But they found out, and you-,"  Audra drags her over to the window, intending to shove her out onto the fire escape, then yanks her back when she sees Emmeline and the others winding their way through the entrance, clearly planning on ambushing Clary while she slept.  They wouldn't even give her a fair fight.  "You need to leave."

"I can't."  Clary was panicked, but in the way of an animal that knows it is trapped and thinking best how to lash out, not someone who is losing their head.  "There's antiapparation all over this place, that's why they didn't just show up, I'd have to make it to the other building."

"You're a witch aren't you?"

"But self levitation is-,"

Audra shook her head, dragged her out onto the window sill.  "You've got to try."  Not try.  Succeed, or die.   Make it past the barrier, or they both die.  "You have to do this, Clary."

"And you?" 

"I'll figure something out.  As long as you're safe."  She is already turning back to the door, intending to put up last minute defenses, so Audra is caught off guard when Clary wraps her arms around her for one last hug.  

"Thank you."  Clary's eyes were brimming with tears but they do not spill.  "I owe you one."

"No," Audra says, thinking of the hospital and of Dumbledore's withered hand and the promises she keeps making to Draco, all the people she cannot save.  "You don't."

When Clary finally climbs onto the railing of the fire escape and launches herself into the air, twisting as she falls and apparatting in one flash all in the space of a second, just one small sliver of her sneaker left behind to fall down to the pavement, Audra has already vaulted down to the balcony below, lie she had never been there at all.

 

 

It burns, and Audra watches from the middle of the circle of death eaters, who had decided to treat the building as one giant campfire, passing around bottles of butterbeer and firewhiskey and handing out pretzels they stole from the shop down the corner.

"She wasn't in there."  Emmeline comes to stand beside her and holds out half a pretzel like its a peace offering.  Audra takes it.  "From the looks of it, she left right when we were getting there."

"That's lucky."  Audra just kept watching the building.  The people had gotten out, but that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be ruin from this- savings gone, scrapbooks destroyed, treasured pets left behind that could not get out on their own.   

"It is, isn't it?"

Between their cloaks, Emmeline's hand finds Audra's and squeezes it, once, twice, a third, that same routine that Clary had started back in their third year the one that meant _I'm here, I love you, you are alright_ all at once.  

Somehow, it doesn't seem like enough.

 


	16. Chapter 16

She is standing between her mother and father.

It was the first time that Audra had been in the same room with since that night at the Stanton mansion where she and her father screamed at each other that Vance's death was everyone's fault but his own, and even though weeks had passed, the sight of them was not any easier to take than it had been in the days after.

They're cutting a ribbon.  It's the offical opening of some new wing of St. Mungo's that had been constructed thanks to her father's bottomless pockets, a move he only made to throw off public suspicion now that Voldemort was back in the open, and it's so wrong, so fake, like one wrong move or one awkward word could send it all shattering apart like glass, and Audra can't stand it.

"Audra, if you would like to do the honors?"  Her father is smiling down at her the way he used to when she was little and she never had to question the fact that he loved her.  Back then, she had believed him when he said he would protect her from all the monsters in the world, and never imagined he was one of the people she should be running from.  Now, she can't tell if it is just an act for the people watching or if he really does think that a few nice words would be all it took for his little girl to come back home again.

 _But I'm not that girl, father,_ she thought, _and there's nothing that you can protect me from that I haven't already taken care of, so maybe I never needed you, after all._

Still, everyone is watching, and the sooner she gets this over with the sooner she can leave.  The minister is watching, and her father's hands on her shoulders is making her shudder, and Audra can see Mr. Weasley's face flashing in the crowd, so its with a certain amount of haste that she raises her wand and slashes through the tape.

The people clap.  The healers converge on the her father, pictures are taken, and Audra keeps the smile on her face, the perfect picture of the devoted daughter right up to the moment where she slips away and apparates.

It's not really a conscious choice to go where she does, other than the fact that everything is falling apart and she had no where left to turn.  She hasn't seen Fred in two weeks, Clary seems to have gone up in smoke, Emmeline is getting thinner and paler by the day, and Audra doesn't know how much longer she can live like this.

"Oh, god."  She catches sight of the grave for the first times since the funeral, this giant marble monument their parents built to a boy they didn't really know, and Audra crumbles right there in front of it, the pads of her fingers scraping over the sharp edges of his name engraved into the stone.  "Oh, god, Vance."

Audra coughs up her tears, taking great heaving breaths that make her shoulders shake and force her down to her knees, bending over so her forehead is resting against the stone.  There are so many people she has failed and Vance is one of them, because if she were a better sister, she would not have let his final resting place ever look like this- with the wilted flowers dying in spiderweb covered vases, the leaves that scatter over the cement plating.  

"I'm so sorry."  She never really said good bye. At first it was because she was being swallowed up by guilt, and then it was because she thought that any emotion at all would be a gate way for Voldemort to use, one little crack that let him pry her open.  "I never meant, I never wanted-,"  Everyone that ever met her had told her how beautiful she was, but she was not beautiful now, ripping her hands up on the stone and coughing her words out through her tears, mascara streaming down over her face and the hair tangling in the wind.  "You weren't supposed to leave me!"  Even at the end, when she was holding him in her arms and he was taking that last, rattling breath, like it had got lost in his chest somewhere, she hadn't really thought that he would leave her.   "I wasn't supposed to have to do this alone!"

But here she was.

Alone.

"Ain't this a sight."  The voice makes her whip around, and she stumbles, slipping in the damp grass.  It's only that keeping her from hexing the person on sight, and it turns out to be fortunate- she didn't think the Order would take kindly to the fact that she had cost Dung a few of his fingers.  "Aren't you supposed to be at some big ministry thing?"

Audra had expected to run into Mundungus long before this, considering the types of places that she had begun to frequent, but out of all of them, she hadn't thought it would be a graveyard.  "Fletcher."  She wipes at her tears, not seeing the point of hiding it, and too exhausted to be embarrassed over the fact that he had snuck up behind her, anyways.  "What are you doing here?"

"Got some business."  He starts to shove a misshapen bag out of sight with his foot, and then shrugs.  "Been using that cellar as a hide out."

Audra snorts.  "Nice."  She heaves herself to her feet, trying to ignore the stinging in her palms where she had scraped it against the grave and the way that her tights were ripped at the knee.  "Good seeing you, dung."

"Wait."  He looked extremely awkward, like he thought that it might be the right thing to offer her some sort of comfort but couldn't think of any.  "I have a message for you.  From Molly."  Audra waits.  "She said to stay away from that dueling club.  Says your going to hurt somebody."

Audra feels a hot wash of shame, and then just as fast is covered up by a wave of anger, because what right did anyone have to tell her what she could or could not do?  They had thrown her to the wolves.  It is her fault that she came back out stronger than any of them, having done what she had to in order to survive?  

"That's pretty hypocritical, coming from you."  Audra regretted not hexing him.  

"Hey."  He draws himself to his full height, then, which was not much, and levels a finger at her.  It was the first time he had acted like any sort of adult.  "I don't hurt people."

"We all hurt people."  She thinks of cursing him just to prove her point, and for a moment he must have seen it in her eyes because he flinches back, but before he can even raise his wand to defend himself, she has already turned her wand on the flowers instead.  "Ennervate."  They straighten up and the flowers bloom all over again, slightly paler than they had been before, but still alive.  "See you around, Mundungus."

"Yes."  He pulls his hood up, and it strikes her with a sense of familiarity.  She'd seen that same hood, lurking in the doorway of the fight club, following her around the room.  "I expect so."


	17. Chapter 17

The magic crackles.

It happens, sometimes, when a large group of witches and wizards gather together, like electricity sparking through the air or static gathering on your clothes, particularly when those wizards were young and excited and pumped full of emotions that they were dying to let lose.  Audra's normally not one to be able to feel it, other than those first nights at Hogwarts where she can feel it thrumming under the castle foundation like she can feel the magic singing in her bones, but she can feel it now- jumping from body to body, vibrating through the air, gathering on the tabletops and the surface of the water like some sort of glittering dust. 

Beside her, Emmeline gathered the trail of her skirt into her fist and shook away the grass and leaves and dirt it had collected by dragging on the ground.  "Stupid."  She hadn't wanted to come, but Audra made her.  Emmeline hadn't wanted to do anything since Clary disappeared.  "Stupid idea for a party."

The theme was anonymous, which meant that they were to come dressed however they wanted, as long as no one could tell who they were.  Honestly, Audra thought it was a great idea for a party- not only did it mean that they were all likely to take more risks under the influence of firewhiskey, but it also meant that for once, everyone from Hogwarts can pour into one place without worrying about the clumsy necessitites of whether their families were fighting or if the person in question was in mourning or if you were supposed to hate them because of who their parents were.

There was no room for blood feuds when you didn't even know a persons name.

"Well, I love it."  Audra traced the curve of her mask, like it might have fallen away while she wasn't paying attention.  The only way that she had been able to convince Emmeline to come was if she promised that they would look elegant, so here they were, ready for a masquerade ball- ornate masks covering their faces and full ball gowns, their bare arms shivering in the night air.  "I think its lovely."

"Of course you do."  Emmeline threw herself down onto the ground beside Julian and holds a hand out for a drink that no one had offered her, and Audra thinks that she should take a picture of her like that, sprawled out on the grass with the hedges back behind her, the floating balls of light illuminating her face.  Audra has gotten into the habit of trying to burn every motion into her brain like it would be the last time they would see each other, like a freeze frame flashing behind her eyelids would be the same as a good-bye.  "You like this kind of thing."

Audra just likes having one night where she does not have to worry about rules.  About lies.  About watching every word she says, because here, no one knows that she is Audra Stanton, the daughter of society elites and sister of a dead brother, a girl who used to love Fred but apparently doesn't anymore, and depending on who you ask, the player to beat in every fight club throughout London.  

She likes being hidden, but sometimes, even a mask is not enough, so when two figures emerge from the part in the hedges wearing matching suits with their faces half painted over, identical down to the last inch of their height and the part of her hair, Audra knows without having to be told that she had just laid eyes on the twins.  There was nothing to prove she was right other than the shock of red hair and the fact that they were together, but Audra still gravitates toward them without thinking about it, like she is a puppet tangled in someone else's strings and has no choice but to move forward.  She twists around in place to follow their progress through the room, and she cannot almost pinpoint the exact moment where they notice her looking at them, when George reaches out to nudge Fred and Fred pauses right in the middle of the joke he was telling, his drink frozen halfway to his mouth.

The moment lasts only a second, barely a half a heart beat, but it is enough for Audra to tell that Fred was able to recognize her.  

 

 

 

It's like a dance, where Fred takes two steps forward and Audra pulls back, both of them staring at each other while taking part in their separate conversations, their brief moments of eye contact, a beckoning, a silent warning of _not now, not yet, soon, be still, be patient,_ until they are finally able to move from the pool to the deck to the crowded kitchen, until Audra is able to creep up the stairs to one of the empty bedrooms and wait for Fred to follow.

He doesn't wait long enough. She registers that somewhere in the back of her mind even as his hands are on her for the first time in weeks that he did not wait long enough.  Fred was smart, but he was also clumsy, too caught up in what he wants in the moment to think of what he needs for the future, but now, Audra doesn't care- no one knew who they were, anyways.  There was nothing strange about the two of them running off together.

"You're here."  Audra didn't want to talk, but Fred did, even as she tried to pull him back to her.  "I didn't know- I hoped, when I saw the invite, it seemed Emmeline's type of thing."

She wanted to tell him that it was her idea, actually, but that really she only decided to go because it was something that the old Emmeline would have jumped at the chance to attend, but that might make her want to tell him about Clary's disappearance and how they weren't careful enough and the choice that Emmeline made, how she worried that maybe the same thing would happen to them, where they thought they were smarter than they really were and Audra would have to choose between pain and giving Fred up to Voldemort's mercy.  That's the problem with talking now, there is just so much that she cannot say.

"Doesn't matter."  She reaches out to close the door with a swipe of her arm and rips off her mask, wishing that she could wipe away the paint on his face just as easy so it could be the two of them, really and truly.  "We're together now."

But not forever.  That's what she's thinking in the next moments, where he tells her how he misses her and how he worries about her and that he would do anything for her, that he loves her, and she tells him that she loves him back even though she would rather be not talking at all, and then there is nothing _left_ for them to do but sit and talk, which means that there is no point in avoiding it anymore.

"Fred."  He must have known that there was something wrong from the tone of her voice.  "We can't do this anymore."

"What are you talking about?"  He straightens up, making her fall back away from him and grab onto the bedside table for balance.  

"I mean we need to stop.   Not because I want to."  Before, Audra thought if they would ever get to this point she would be crying, but now she doesn't feel anything at all.  "But I need to keep you safe."

"But we are safe."  He still looked like he didn't know what was happening.  "The tree house, this- its safe, Audra."

"No,"  she says, and then she tells him the truth, about Clary and Emmeline and their enchantment and how it all crumbled with the slightest of mistakes.  "You see, don't you?  I can't do that to you.  I can't take having you die and knowing its my fault."

It would be her fault anyways, if he died.  No matter how it happened, it would be her fault for not being able to protect him.  

"You wouldn't do what she did."  He wasn't upset, anymore, just a lot shocked, like the news of Clary had hit him like a slap to the face.  "You wouldn't turn me in."

"I might."  That was the thing she was most afraid of, that when it mattered, she would not be strong enough.  "You don't know the things they would do to me."

"I don't want that to happen to you, either.   But we can't just give up.  We have to _try,_ Audra."

"No-,"

"We belong with each other.  You're mine.  I'm yours.  Wasn't that what you told me?"  He was gripping hold of the locket, the one that she had slipped over her head on a whim and hid the pendant beneath her collar, just in case he was going to be here.  "That we were the only inevitable conclusion in this whole miserable world."

"It's not forever."  She pulls the locket over her head and it catches in her hair, and she is isn't sure if the tears in her eyes are from the pain of pulling it free or the knowledge that this might be the last time she hands it over.  "Just for now."

"And how long is that going to last?"  He shoves it deep in his pocket, and even though Audra knows that his anger burns up bright and fast and he would regret it later, the fact that he left her crying in the dark, now he stands away from her and moves from the door like he has no intention of ever turning back.  "Let me know when you're ready, Audra."

It was entirely unfair, that she was always being made out to be the bad guy when all she was trying to do was keep people safe, but Audra supposes its better than the alternative.

 

 

She doesn't really remember the rest of the night.

She knows that she sits in that room for a long time, listening to the shouts and the music floating up from the lawn below, and then she remembers putting her mask on and going down the stairs, through the kitchen and past the campfire and on out to the pool, where she waded into the water with her full ballgown and fancy hair and floated on the surface, the fabric ballooning out around her.

There were fireworks.  She watches them, the explosions and the spirals and the screaming shrieks of the more exuberant fireworks, dully noting that it was one of Fred and George's creations that she was watching.  Noticing how beautiful they were, what an extraordinary piece of magic it really was.   And she knows that somewhere Fred is watching her watching them, his fist balled around the locket so tight the metal cuts into his hands.

Audra gets up, eventually, maybe because of Emmeline and maybe because she realized just how cold she really was, pulling herself out of the pool dripping wet, her dress spilling water out onto the cement.

People are staring, but they still do not know who she is.   Doesn't know who Emmeline is, even though they have scene the two of them walk through Hogwarts together a million times over, one blonde and one brunette who thought they were going to rule the world.

It's funny how  wrong you can be.

 

 

 

"Mom."  Audra pounds on the door again, and it makes her cry even harder than she had been, because there had been a time where all it would take was the slightest pressure for the door to swing open for her, just like it did for every member of the Stanton family.  "Mommy."

She hadn't said that in ages.  She couldn't remember when the last time she called her that, but there were so many things she couldn't remember- the first time she realized she loved Fred, the day she and Emmeline met, the last time she was with her brother besides that night at the ministry. It had never seemed important until now.

"Audra?"  Her mom is the one to answer the door, thankfully, and for a moment they just stare at each other, her mother in her bathrobe with her hair up in curlers and Audra still in her ball gown, dripping wet and shivering.  "Honey?"

She wanted to know what was wrong, but Audra couldn't tell her, so she just shook her head.  "I messed up, mom."  She sniffs and tries to stop crying but can't and walks forward instead, walks right into her mother's open arms and lets herself be guided to the couch.  "I messed up."

"It's okay."  She was afraid, her mother.   Audra didn't want to make her afraid but she couldn't help it, just kept sitting on this couch hiccupping her way through the rest of her sobs, and when her mom wrapped an arm around her and started rocking her back and forth like she was five years old again, Audra does not pull away.  "Everything's going to be okay."

She was humming like she used to when Audra was little and had woken up from a bad dream.  "It's not."  It was comforting, to sit here, and for a moment Audra really does consider giving up, telling her the truth and asking her to run.  "Nothing is ever going to be okay again."

 _I killed you,_ she thinks dimly, feeling the vibration of her mother's song humming in her throat. _You're as good as dead._


	18. Dumbledore

She's given up trying to cure him.  Now, its a simple manner of halting the contagion, of keeping whatever poison that Dumbledore had exposed himself to confined to his hand, settling for a prolonging instead of an ending and watch the rot creep further and further and further up his hand, inch by unnoticed inch.  

"Does it hurt?"  It's one of the rare times she has gotten to be alone with him without Snape or McGonagall, where he lets her control the conversation.  She supposes its her payment for coming her and brewing potion after potion to try and stop the infection.  

He flexes his fingers, and Audra can feel the motion travel up to the part of his arm that she was dabbing her smoking concoction on.  "Often."  It doesn't look like it should hurt.  It doesn't look like it should be something that could feel anything at all.  "But not always."

"I'm sorry."  He doesn't answer to that, and Audra doesn't blame him- they o not have time to apologize for every scrap of pain the other is feeling.  "Have you heard from Clary?"

That was the real reason that she had told Snape she would come here tonight, even if she hadn't told him.  Snape's patience with her continued faith in her friends was wearing thin, but she could not let go of the idea when Clary might be out there, needing help.

"As far as we know, she's safe."  He peers at her over the rim of his glasses, and even though Audra is one of the few people who know how frail he really is, she wants nothing more than to let him be strong enough for the both of them.  "There is no reason to believe anything to the contrary."

"So you don't know anything at all, is what you're saying."  Audra had expected something, even if it was only in the form of a letter that made no sense or Clary letting her catch a glimpse of her from the back of the dueling club, but maybe even Clary was immune to that level of stupid sentiment.  "She could be in trouble."

"Clary's very good at what she does.  She has hidden countless others.  There is no reason to think that she could not have done the same thing with herself.  In fact, the only reason that she had been caught at all was a certain attachment to your friend Emmeline."  He was looking at Audra like he knew too much again.  Remembering Snape say that he was an accomplished legimelins, she looked away.  Not, of course, that she thought that Dumbledore would read her mind on purpose.  "The circumstances now are very different."

"It was stupid."  The anger that Audra had been repressing since that night at the party with Fred two weeks ago was rising to the surface.  "Stupid for both of them."

"And they both paid dearly for that price."  He was watching her again.  "But don't you think that in some respects, it might have been worth it?"

"Is this where you lecture me again on how love conquers all?"  She had sent through more than one explanation of how the tie between Voldemort and Harry works, and each time, she came away with the feeing that Dumbledore was more than a bit disappointed with her disbelief.  "Because I hate to break it to you, sir, but not this time."

"Not exactly."  He inclined his head like she had made a worthwhile observation even though Audra was sure she hadn't.  "Though it does seem like a chance worth taking, wouldn't you agree?"

She hadn't, but more and more, she's starting to.


	19. Chapter 19

_You know better than this,_ is what she is thinking, when she lays her hand against the chill of the glass door to the twin's shops in Diagon alley. _Haven't you learned anything from Clary and Emmeline?_

She had, and that warning was still ringing in her ears, but so were Dumbledore's words about how maybe it was worth taking the chance.  That some things were worth a little risk. _And anyways,_ she thought, pushing the door forward so quick that the bell overhead barely even made a sound, _I'm not Emmeline.  I won't just roll over and take what punishment they decide to hand out._

It isn't much of a comfort, and the idea of being caught still makes a knot of anxiety form in her stomach, but now that she is standing in the shop, the pull is too strong for her to pull away.  After all the work she had poured into the twin's dream, she had never had the chance to really look around and see it in all its glory, and now the sight of it makes her breath catch in her throat.

It's beautiful.

That's the only word she can think of as she walks through the rows of brightly covered products, the love potions she designed piled up in an overwhelming cauldron and bottled a garish shade of pink, the fireworks whizzing harmlessly in a glass display case, the cage of rambunctious fluffy animals that she thinks George must be breeding himself.  It was, for the first time, all right at her fingertips and Audra does not want to miss a moment of it.  This shop was built partially by her, even if she hadn't been around to see it through.

Audra's not sure how long she stands there in the darkness, but eventually she winds her way past the cash register and up the creaky stairs to their flat, wand raised just in case George decides to hex before looking as she pounds on the door.

It crashes open.  They clearly weren't expecting anyone, but still, even now it was obvious that they assumed the face on the other side of the door would be a friendly one.  From the looks of it, Fred hadn't even brought his wand.

"Audra?"  His face split into a grin, but George's entire face tightens and he brushes past her, their shoulders knocking together so hard she falls back against the wall.  "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you."  The knot that had formed in her sotmach had traveled up to her throat, making it hard to get the words out.  "I went to the tree house but you weren't there and you wouldn't know to show up, so I came here, I had to tell you that I was wrong, Fred.  I was wrong.  This is worth everything to me, too."

It has all the makings of a pretty nice reunion, had it not been for the fact that George barreled his way back up the stairs, pushing between them to grab Audra by the shoulders and shake her.  "Did anyone see you?"  She doesn't answer at first, so he shakes her again.  It's only surprise that keeps her from throwing him off.  "Think Audra.  Was anyone on the street?"

He must have heard about Clary.  Fred probably told him.  Audra doesn't blame him for being worried.  If their situations were reversed, Audra probably wouldn't want to risk it all for her brother's love story, either.

"There was no one in the street."  She bats his hands away and rolls her eyes even as the weight of how stupid she had been settles down around her.  "Merlin, George, don't you know me at all?"

"Yeah."  He tries for a smile but it just comes across as weak kneed relief, and when his hand returns to squeeze her shoulder, this time it has the comforting feel of coming home.  "Yeah, I do."

It's clear that she's not the only one who can only think of how many dangers are looking around them.  Audra's almost glad she's not the only one only thinking of the bad things.  In her experience, it was really the only was to survive.

 

 

George makes her dinner.  Its been so long since she had real, home made food (comfort food, like the kind Molly would make her when she came to stay for the weekend) that she puts everything else on hold to eat it with an almost indecent amount of rush.

"You can slow down."  It had taken a bit, but they were falling back into the easy flow of how the three of them used to be- George and Fred and Audra, now with a bit more emphasis on the Fred and Audra part.  "I'll make you more."

"I know, I know, it's just."  Just that she'd gotten used to nothing being permanent, to having good things ripped away from her before she can learn to appreciate them.  "It's good to be back."

George smiles at her, looking across the room at where Fred is finishing tinkering with their latest invention.  "Whatever I said before, I'm glad your here.  You know that, right?"

Audra turns away from Fred long enough to look at George, who had always been the more serious twin, the one who seemed more likely to do what it takes even when those measures weren't necessarily falling in the realm of what was good.  Maybe the one more likely to appreciate what it is she is trying to do by staying away.  

"Yeah, Georgie."  She places her hand on top of his own.  "I know that."

 

 

 

She doesn't leave.

There had been a brief moment where she thought about it, how it would be easier to sneak away under the cover of darkness than broad daylight, but at the time Fred's arms were around her and George was tossing bits of popcorn at them from across the room, and she couldn't bear to be the one to break this apart so soon, and before she knew it, Audra was standing in Fred's bedroom, one of his old t-shirts falling halfway to her knees.

"You take the bed."  Fred didn't seem to know what to do with himself.  They had shared a bed before, but that was back when things were different.  Then, they were either under the constant threat of someone barging in on them or they were recovering from some traumatic experience.  "I can sleep on the couch."

"Don't be stupid, Fred."  She was done with being careful.  Done with people acting like she is something that needs to be handles with gentle hands, always in danger of breaking.  Other people don't need to be the ones who protect her anymore, even when its Fred.  "Stay."

"You want me to?"  His eyes search her face, and despite everything, it is comfortable to know that he would give as much or as little as she asked of him.  

She moves across the bed to get to him, taking him by the hand and drawing him down to meet her.  "Just to sleep, alright?"  He doesn't seem to be put anymore at ease.  "I want to know what it feels like to wake up next to you."

 _In case we never get the chance again,_ she thinks, but doesn't have to say it, because he is already crawling in beside her, staring steadfastedly at the ceiling with tears in his eyes as she lays her head down on his chest, maybe realizing once and for all how fragile this thing between them was.  Maybe it was the first time for both of them where they had to understand that more than likely, this story would not end in happy ever after, no matter what they had promised each other.

"I love you,"  She says, searching out his hand in the darkness, and her voice is too loud in the quiet.

"I love you, too.  Whatever you have to do," he says, and she does not know if he is talking about her leaving him behind to ensure both their safeties or what she had done on Dumbledore's orders or maybe the fact that she is bleeding away her pain in a dueling club in a bad part of town, "I'm always going to love you."

 _You love me now,_ she thinks, watching him in the darkness long after he had fallen to sleep. _That's just going to have to start being enough._

 

 

 

She wakes slowly, drawing herself out of dreams one breath at a time, which is so different from the way she normally jerks herself awake, wand at the ready.  This time, though, its like her body knew that she would not need to defend itself, like every part of her knows how safe she is beside him.

"Hey."  He is tracing the freckles on the skin of her shoulder, which is not as fun or time consuming as when she counts the marks on his skin, but still just as sweet.  "I was beginning to think that you weren't going to wake up."

"I needed to catch up on sleep."  She doesn't move from her spot on the pillow, even though she could smell the bacon that George had undoubtedly got up early to cook for them.  "I haven't been sleeping all that well."

Audra hadn't told him about the nightmares or the restless energy that fills her when night falls, but from the look on his face, she figures that she doesn't have to.  She's not the only one that has joined the fight, even though the twins do not share details.  

(Not that she asks.  He's entitled to his secrets and his scars just as much as Audra is.)

"You're going to disappear again, aren't you?"  Fred didn't seem angry about it, just resigned, like he knew this conversation would have to happen and he would rather be the one to start it.  "Off doing merlin knows what."

Murder.  Torture.  Espionage. 

"Not forever.  Just for a bit."  It does not help matters.  "This war won't last forever, Fred.  I'm going to come back home to you."

"I know that."  His smile is soft again.  "I just wish I had a date."

"How bout Christmas Eve?"  The idea of it sets something in her chest, the idea that she woud only have to last a month before they could be together again.   "Us, at the tree house, our own little holiday miracle."

"That's good."  His hand had stilled, but it starts up again, tracing from one freckle to the other.  She had three at the most.  It can't be that entertaining of a motion.  "It's a date."

"And not before."  Audra closed her eyes, maybe hoping to soften the harshness in her voice.  "We have to be careful, Fred."

"We are."

"I don't want to lose you."  She turned on her back so she could look at him.  "I mean it.  If it came down to this war or you, I'd choose you, every damn time."

"I know." This time, she could not read his expression, but she is sure that he knows at least a little about what she has been willing to do over these past few months.  "That's why we're being careful. You're too important for that."

 _Not everyone can do the things that you can,_ he is saying, but he does not know that those things are mainly only turned towards causing people pain in the name of the greater good. She had managed to keep it from her mind for most of the night, too caught up in the shop and the twins to think of it, but now the idea of what she had done makes her recoil away from him.  

"Still."  She reaches up to him.  "I'd burn the whole world down before I let them touch you."

That, judging by the look on his face, is one of the things that he is afraid of.


	20. Holidays

There is no one who isn't afraid of her now.

That's evident when she goes to pick Draco up for Christmas break, the way that everyone moves to the side when she walks and averts their eyes to keep from looking at her, even though it seems like they cannot help but look at her.  She draws the eye, now, her nails clicking on the wand that she holds down at her side, the slithering bangles that wrap up and down her arm like a snake.  

It's a show of power.  And they know, as if by instinct, that it is not a bluff.

"There you are."  She wraps Draco in a hug the moment she sees him and holds him close, dipping in to whisper so only he can hear.  "Someone's made a mess, haven't they?"

They don't speak again until they are in the car, the bewitched muggle driver not even turning to peer through the divide before speeding off, winding through traffic at twice the normal speed.  It was  present from the Dark Lord, having her chauffer.  Audra's got all kinds of playthings now.

"I've been trying."  His eyes are too wide, his face too thin.  It's the look of someone who has grown desperate, but the trail of bodies and cursed objects Draco has been leaving behind him could have told her that much.  "But nothing's working."

"But our other plan?"  It's strange, to slip in and out of this person.  She can still feel the aftermath of her visit to the twin's like a sort of glow around her skin, where she did not have to play a part for anyone's benefit for a few blessed hours.  She remembers being that girl, who smiles at her boyfriend and laughs at her best friends, but somehow this one, with the power that drips off of her and her tendency to solve problems with body bags seems less like fighting and more like giving in.  Audra is starting to think that it's a bad sign.  Snape had told her that these things are a slippery slope.  It's only now that she's understands what he meant.  "How's that coming."

"Good.  It's hard."  Draco's hands are constantly moving, clenching into fists, in and out, in and out.  She wants to tell him to stop.  "The parts keep sticking."

"You'll figure it out."  She stares out the window, watching the country side whip by, and wished she had taken the carriage just so she has the power to stop somewhere.  After one of her dueling nights, she and Emmeline had gone out and bought a pair of threstrals.   Snape had actually laughed when he saw them.  "You're a smart boy."

"And if I don't?"  

A smart boy who asks stupid questions, apparently.

Audra laughed, a huff through her nose that never quite makes it to a real sound.  "Then you die.  I thought that part was understood."

 

 

 

The house is too crowded, with all of them home.  Or maybe it's just that Audra suddenly occupies more space.  Either way, it drives her out, constantly- to the graveyard, to diagon alley, to Hogsmeade, to muggle towns, sometimes alone and sometimes with Emmeline in tow.

Today, it's down Knockturn alley into Borgin's, Emmeline behind her, their cloaks trailing on the ground.

"You know I hate it here."  Since Clary went away, Emmeline has switched from being too quiet or too loud.   Today she hasn't stopped talking, her voice snapping out every time someone bothered to get in her way.  Audra half thought that they were only moments from seeing someone fall under the slash of her wand, but it stays in her pocket.  "It's just so dirty."

"And the dueling club isn't?"

"That's different."  Emmeline makes Audra hold the door for her and sweeps into the shop, the sound of her voice making everyone turn to look at her.  When they see who it is, most people look away, pretending that the floor has suddenly drawn their interest, but some don't.  They are people who invite stares.  "That's part of it's charm."

The dueling club didn't have any charms besides pain and the chance of money, and neither did Borgin's.  It was a badly lit shop with an owner too good at small talk, and considering that you couldn't actually touch anything because half of it had a curse lying in wait, it held none of the promise of fun that normally came with shopping.

"Miss Stanton.  Surprised to see you here."   Borgin dipped into a bow and ignored Emmeline entirely.  Audra can see her hand twitch to her wand, maybe like Emmeline was thinking of earning his respect the hard way, but then it stills.  "And may I offer my condolences for your brother."

Almost half a year gone and it still stings.  The image of him on that dusty, glass covered floor rises up and she pushes it away.  

"Thank you."   She smiles, but it doesn't feel right on her face.  "We're going to make you a very happy man today, Borgin."

"No doubt."  His teeth are yellow when he smiles.  "I heard you've come into quite a lot of money lately."

Everyone had, apparently.  The news of her dueling habit had traveled to some unsavory places.  She keeps expecting to get challenged in the street by some man whose ego is bigger than his wand.  

"And I'm raring to spend it.  On something like this, perhaps?"  She traces her hand along a cut in the vanishing cabinet.  Borgin's smile flickers, but doesn't fall.  He's been in this business for too long to show any kind of shock.  "How much?"

"It's not for sale."

"I'm sure I have the money to persuade you."

"No.  You don't."  He heaved a sigh and turned his back on her, busying himself on the cash register.  Audra lets him.  It's a strange position, thinking that you have the ability to make people jump like a puppet on the strings.  "But I'm assuming you already knew that."

"I did."  There's a clatter from behind them as Emmeline knocks over a display case.  Audra holds her breath, but nothing explodes and Emmeline doesn't seem to be in any type of pain, so she assumes that it was nothing dangerous.  "We've come into some trouble."

"With the other one?"  She doesn't like how much he knows, but if there's one person in this world she would trust to keep his mouth shut, it would be him.  He doesn't want to betray a circle of his most valued customers.  "I already told the others.  I just buy things.  I don't fix them.  I have no idea how to do so without it being brought into the shop.  Perhaps I could go to it?"

He keeps offering suggestions.  He probably wants it out of his sight as soon as possible.  

"And I'm sure you've already been told that it isn't a possibility."  Though she might make it one, if Draco continues to struggle with his end of the deal.  "It's in a very perilous location."

"Then I don't see why you and your people continue to bother me."  He waves a hand around his shop.  Audra can only imagine the kind of people that had come to pay him a visit.  "I've kept it safe for you."

"Not that anyone else was ever going to buy it."  

She smiles, and he does, too, relaxing now that it was clear that he was not going to be put in harm's way.  "You'd be surprised, Miss Stanton."  His voice is higher when he is not trying to be flattering.  "People are involved in all kinds of curious things."

 

 

 

She gets bored.

Audra supposes that's what really drives her to the fighting club, not pain, not grief, not fear, just simple boredom, the price of having power and no place to put it.  

The crowds have doubled since she started.  She registers that in a dim sort of way, where she knows that she is exposing herself in a way that she never wanted to be known, where people would see her on the street and know whose blood had been on her hands the night before.  Most of the other fighters wear a mask, which is why it had caused such a fuss when she stepped into the ring for the first time and sent spells flying.  Everyone expects you to hide.  Though it does require a certain kind of daring to walk into a ministry function when everyone in the room knows you had been at an illegal dueling ring the night before.

(It isn't just the one club anymore.  It's all of them, the invites pouring in from strange owls that Emmeline fields.  Audra let's Emmeline decide where they go and who she fights.  It's taken them to some rather unsavory places, but at least on those nights, it seems that Emmeline finally manages to forget about Clary.)

"We need to spend some of this."  Emmeline tucks another bag of gold into her pocket.  "Hide it.  Invest it.  Something.  We can't keep just sticking it under your bed."

"Why not?"

"You're running out of room."

No one else wins as consistently as her.  Normally, if there had been someone with a winning streak even half as impressive as hers, it would have been broken long before they reach this point.

(The problem with everyone else, Audra knows, is conscious.  They hold back, even if they don't mean to.  They reign themselves in.  Audra doesn't have that problem.)

"We could buy Christmas presents with it."  It's the first thing she can think of, and Emmeline snorts.  "Make a day out of it."

"Yeah, right."  Emmeline walks up to the fountain in the middle of the clearing and dumps a few coins in.  It's all going to some charity that Audra had never heard of, but she knows that is not why Emmeline is doing it- she's making wishes, yearning for them to come true with everything she's got.  "And who do we have to buy Christmas presents for?"

It's a cynical thing to say, and a true thing.  She could not buy anything for any of the Weasley's, or Harry, or Hermione.  She could not find Clary.  She was not talking to her father anymore.  Snape would not know what to do with it, and giving one to Dumbledore would just be awkward.  The only one she had left to shop for was Emmeline.  That, more than anything else, was a measure of how isolated a person can get.  How many bridges can you burn before there is no land left for you to stand?

 

 

 

 

There's a party that she should be at, only Audra cannot go down the stairs yet because she cannot get the necklace to close.

It's goblin made, the gems blood red.  Costs more than most people houses.  She had bought it with a full week's worth of winnings.  The grand pay off of thirty-seven different fights.

"Here."  Hands cover her own, and Audra looks up in the mirror to see a much older version of her own face, warped by Azkaban.  "Let me."

Audra lets her hands drop and pulls her hair away from her neck.  Bellatrix's hands are cold on her skin.

"You and Draco have been busy."  The words are hot on her neck.  "I keep seeing you two, huddled in the corner.  what are you working on?"

"You know what we're working on."  She turns in her seat to face her.  "And you know we aren't supposed to talk about it."

"You're talking about it."

"I'm assisting."

"Does he need assistance?"

"He's a man."  A boy.  "They always need assisting."

There's a curve of a smile, a touch of a laugh, and then it disappears until it is only Bellatrix again.  She is crazy but she is also kind, when she wants to be.  Before she met the Dark Lord, she must have had a lot of promise.  Audra wonders if she thinks about it often, all the what ifs of her life.  

"You do know he expects him to fail?"  She's got a proud face.  They both do, when it comes to that.  "Probably wants it."

"And have another step in to do the work."  Audra doesn't want to think about failure.  She doesn't want to think about success, either.  For the first time in her life, she can think of no good answers.  "So what's it matter if he wins?"

"Because it's the Dark Lord's will."  Bellatrix is talking about the murder of her nephew and does not even care.  It's strange that Audra finds herself in a position that she does.  "Shouldn't we do our best to make sure his will is fulfilled?"

"What he wants is Dumbledore killed.  Dead is dead."  Audra lets her hair fall back down and touches the pendant at her chest.  "Does it matter who kills him?"

"No."  Bellatrix takes a step back, letting Audra move through the room.  "I suppose not.  But a word of advice?"

Audra hesitates at the doorway.  Bellatrix takes that a sign that she can go on.

"You shouldn't try and protect him.  You never can.  It's best just to toughen them up."  Bellatrix is staring at herself in the mirror.  "It's the only way to help them survive."

Audra stares at her for a moment, then sweeps out of the room, leaving Bellatrix to keep the rest of her advice to herself.  It's not like she needs to hear any of it.


	21. Christmas Eve

She'd kept an hourglass on her windowsill, counting down the hours, ticking away the seconds grain by grain. It was specially enchanted to count down to any time or date the owner told it to, and when people asked, she told them all it was counting away the days until Christmas.

It wasn't even that much of a lie.

Emmeline doesn't ask her where she is going but it's clear that she knows, or at least suspects.  For once in her life, Audra doesn't care to give a cover story, because if she does not at least allow herself this night, she is afraid that the reason for fighting might slip out of her mind and this life would wear her down, until she is a carbon copy of her Aunt Bellatrix, just as used up and worn down.

Audra can't forget her reason to fight.

It's the only way for a person to really keep going.

"Fred?"  Her apparation was clumsy and she stumbles a bit, feet tripped on the tree root twisted earth.  "Are you here?"

"I'm here."  He steps out of the shadows.  "I brought a friend."

She's about to get angry, her wand already half raised, but then George steps up beside him and two identical grins shine down at her, like the best bandage for all the wounds she had collected over the past few weeks.  She gets enveloped in a hug and it does not feel like being strangled, it feels like coming home, and Audra finally lets herself breathe.

"I missed you,"  She said, whispering the words into their necks and they just hold her tighter, the three of them wound together in the middle of this forest.  "It feels like forever."

"It feels like a lifetime,"  Fred agrees.

"I love you."  The words come out too intense and she feels strange for a moment, turning away from Fred to give a hug just for George.  "And you.  Both of you.  So much.  I hate being apart from you, I-,"

 _I want to come home,_ she almost said, a conclusion that she had come to the night before, an idea born out of both Emmeline's insistence that Clary was someone that they had never cared about and Bellatrix's warning from the week before.  She did not want to end up as some story that people carried down, even if she died a hero.  She did not want to give herself over to this fight.  She wanted to live, and if that meant running, well- she had finally found a use for all that money underneath the floorboards.

All she needed was to convince a few people to come with her.

But she never got the chance.

"Oh, god."  The voice was instantly familiar, and for the first time in months, Audra was caught off guard.  "Emmeline was right.  You really are in love with him."

She turned around, the twins drawing their wands on either side of her, and she thought she might be sick, right there on all of their shoes.

"Draco."  She knew how bad this seems.  She could not think of any solutions.  "this isn't what it looks like."

"It looks like you've been meeting with them the whole time!"  He was panicked.  He had not really thought that she was meeting them, she realized, he had taken her side in an argument and intended to prove that she was every inch the death eater that the Dark Lord thought she was.  And he turned out to be horribly wrong.  "It looks like you're in love with them."

"Draco."  She held out her hands to him, wandless, trying to calm him down.  She would not deny it.  She has seen what that does to a person.  "You're overreacting."

"Am I?"  He jerks his head at her, and his wand spits sparks.  "You're wearing that necklace.  You just said that you loved them.  This isn't part of a mission anymore.  So what the hell am I supposed to do with that?"

"Alright, you little ferret."  Fred stepped in front of her, his face a mask, anger rolling off of him, and Audra could only think of how he had followed her.  "Listen-,"

"How'd you know I would be here?"  She stepped out in front again.  "No one else could break the spell.  If they could track me, Emmeline would be here, too.  Would have followed me a long time ago.  So how'd you do it?"

"That necklace,"  He says, and she hears what she had thought when Emmeline and Clary were caught, how sentiment is the thing that fails you every single time.  "The last time I saw you wearing it, I put a tracking spell.  That's what I followed.  Not you."

 _I should have thrown it in the fire,_ she thinks, but George is already reaching out and snapping it off her neck, ripping it off so fast that the chain cuts into her skin, throws it deep into the forest.  Beside her, Fred makes a sound that seems like a wound.

"I have to turn you in."  He was coming to conclusions as fast as Audra could consider solutions.  "I have to tell him."

"No, Draco, listen to me,"  She was preparing to beg.  To plead.  To offer him anything that he might want.  

"What do you want me to do?  You did this!  You!"  There were tears slipping from his eyes.  "This is no one's fault but you're own!"

"You don't have to tell him.  There are spells."  She keeps her voice calm on purpose, even though her hand was on her wand.  Audra had meant what she said before- between anything in this world and Fred, she would alway choose Fred, a million times over.  "He never needs to know."

"You're nothing but a liar."  Draco's hand plunges into his cloak before she can stop him.  "And I'm not going to die for you."

There are three spells at once.  A disarming spell, a jinx, and the jellylegs jinx, all of which combined to have him splayed at their feet, wandless and a trickle of blood falling from his nose.  It's a mistake.  If anyone wanted to, they could find this place again by tracking his DNA alone.

It's like the world is crashing down on her.  She can hear the twins behind her, discussing what to do in hushed, frantic voices, but she cannot follow the conversation, not when Draco is looking at her like that.

"We've got to kill him."  This from George, who she always thought was the gentlest one out of the three of them.  But war changes everyone.  "He can't go back home."

"He's a kid."  Fred, who does not really know what it means to risk everything just for the chance to come out on top.

"He's a liability.  Do you want to die?  Because I'm not going to let you."  There is a hand at the end of her coat, Draco trying to claw his way back to his feet, and she remembers the first man she ever killed, the homeless man crawling to her feet to beg for mercy.  He would have kissed the ground she walked on if she let him live.  But just like she did with him, she lashes out at Draco, kicks back at him so the trickle becomes a flood.  When she turns back to the twins, George has Fred by the shoulders, one hand cradling the back of his head.  "I'm not asking you to do anything.  This one is on me.  Let me do this for you."  A long pause where Fred takes in a shuddering breath like he is trying not to cry.  "Let me save us."

Audra does not know what he means, but she gives herself over to it, glad that someone else has come up with a solution.  It's a test of how good her reflexes are, that she was able to get her wand up in time to block the spell.

"Avada-,"  There's a flash of green met by a flash of blue, and the force of the two spells rebound, leveling part of the forest around them.  When the dust settles, she and George are the only two still on their feet.  To their right, the tree house is nothing but a pile of rubble.  

"Don't."  George looks afraid of her, but even with the fury in her voice and the wand pointed at his chest, he does not back down.  "You aren't going to hurt him."

"I'm protecting us."

"Since when have you killed children?"

"Like you haven't?"  Both Fred and Draco are following the exchange like they don't quite understand it, but Audra does.  George knows.  He knows the things she has done and has for a while, but has not told Fred because it would hurt him, and if there is one thing in this world that they had in common, it was how much they cared about him.  "Get out my way."

"He's mine."  She's not sure when she had started to think of him like that.  "Mine to protect."

"He's your mess."  George jabs his wand out at her and singes a hole in her coat.  "Your mistake, and I'm going to clean it up."

"Not like that."  This is what falling apart feels like.  This is the end of the world.  This is why she wanted to run away, and why she needed to stay.  "I'm not going to let you become a murderer."

"Maybe I already am.  But that's not so terrible to you, is it?"  He's so close that he is only hissing the words at her, and Fred cannot hear them now.  "We're exactly the same."

"No.  We're not.  I've only ever done what I have to."  Loyalty can be the worst trait of the gryffindors.  That, and their ability to anything, so long as they knew that it was right.  "And we don't have to do this."

She kneels on the ground beside Draco and helps him sit up.  "Close your eyes,"  She whispers, and he does, the tears leaking out from his eyelids and running down his face to drip onto the hand she has cradling his face.  "Don't move, okay?  It's not going to hurt."  She's made so many promises that she doesn't even remember which ones she's broken.   "Not even a bit."

 

 

 

 


	22. Chapter 22

"Jesus," George grabs Draco under the shoulders and let's him drop onto the ground, hard, like his skin had burned him. Maybe it had. There are sparks coming from the end of Audra's wand and she is not all that certain of the spells she is casting. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Nothing." She spits out the word, and Fred tries to shoulder his way between them, cut off the fight before it could start. She remembers when George used to be the one to play peace maker. Now he wants to murder sixteen year old boys and bury their bodies in the woods. "You are going to do nothing. But me? I'm going to fix it."

"How could you possibly fix this?" He gestures down at Draco, who is sprawled beneath their feet without a mark on him. Her obliviation spell was too strong, and now instead of a slightly confused Draco that she can take to the bar and ply with drinks until he forgets all about tonight. "He's going to wake up. And he'll want to know what happened."

"He won't remember!" Fred was anxious to help, but he was so out of his depth he didn't even understand the problem. "Why are we still standing here? Let's just leave him."

"She did it too strong. He's not going to wake up on his own. And don't you think he's going to wonder why he woke up in the middle of the woods, anyways? He's going to pull on that thread." His wand was out now, too, tapping on his thigh. "Who knows what he's going to unravel."

"He's not going to know anything. He won't have any questions, because everyone else will already have given him the answers." Her mind is moving faster than the rest of her, and it's with a clumsy sort of jolt that she stumbles to her feet. She cannot lose the image of Draco turning himself over to his hands, ready to die with a breath of relief. There are things that are going to haunt her until the day she dies and this night in the forest is one of them.

"And how the hell are we going to do that?" George snarls at her, and his wand is at her throat again. "You should have let me kill him."

"You aren't going to touch him." She knew that they would listen. That Fred would trust her, even though he shouldn't, because she is taking a gamble on the off chance that she can keep them all safe, even though every cell of her body is telling her just to cut her losses, grab the twins and run, Draco be damned. "You're just going to wait."

"For what?"

"For me to make the story."

 

 

She goes home first.  Not the Malfoy's, because that seemed like tempting fate in a way that Audra couldn't, and it also felt like a sense of low that she cannot bring herself to sink to, asking his parents to unwittingly be part of the cover up of their sons attack.  

It's her mother's home that she goes to.  It's got the ghost of Vance painted all over the walls and she is in danger of running into her parents at any turn, but all that she sees is Vinnie, dusting over the bookshelves in her old room.

"Miss Stanton?"  The little house elf dropped her feather duster.  "Are you hurt, Miss Stanton?"

There is blood covering her clothes.  Her pant leg, specifically, from where she had kicked out at Draco.

"I'm not hurt.  It isn't my blood.  Listen to me, Vinnie."  She drops to her knees in front of her and grabs the shaking girl by the shoulders.  Let her think what she wants.  "You can't tell anyone."

"Is that an order?"

"You can't tell anyone,"  Audra repeats, slower, making sure there is no chance at being misunderstood.  "I forbid it."

The elf nods, but Audra doesn't wait for confirmation, just spins and moves to her closet, stripping down to her underwear and throwing on different clothes, ones that cling to her skin.  Dueling clothes.

"Get rid of these."  She shoves them into Vinnie's arms and she staggers under the weight.  "Burn them, throw them in the trash chute, I don't care.  Just make it disappear."

"Yes, miss."  Vinnie turns to leave and hesitates.  "Is there anything else I can do to help, Miss?"

Meaning, _I know you have done a bad thing._   Meaning, _I have cleaned up bodies before._   Meaning, _if you want me to, there is a way for me to make this go away without anyone knowing._

Audra is tempted.  But involving Vinnie would mean her knowing about Fred and George, and there are other people that Vinnie must answer to other than Audra.  Scarier people, who would be very interested to know about her continued association with a band of blood traitors.

"No thanks, Vinnie."  She puts on her fingerless gloves that Fred had got her for Christmas two years ago and twirls her wand in her hand.  "This one I have to do on my own."

 

 

 

There is a line to get in, but Audra bypasses it and moves straight to the door, boots clomping on the cement.

People stare.  They whisper, they mutter, they snarl her name.  A group of boys that she once shared a plate of fries with after a fight spot her and cheer, already on their way to being a drunken mess, but it's only when she makes it to the door that the goblin at the table looks up.

"You're late."  He reaches out to take the gold from her and she flinches away from his touch just like she always does.  Audra doesn't mean to be prejudiced, but it just seems so often, there is something inherently filthy about creatures like him.  They fight dirty.  She thinks it's why they like her so much.  "We gave up hoping that you would show."

Not that she had agreed to come, but there's an unspoken hope throughout London with every fight club owner that theirs would be the one she chooses to duel in for the night, because when she comes to fight, the crowds double, which means double the money.  This one is her favorite, because the food is cheap and everyone knows her name.  She likes to hear people cheer for her.

"Don't look like that."  She taps him under the chin with her finger and he snarls.  "Don't you know you're my favorite?"

She's trying to be a flirt and doing a bad job.  She's also talking too loud, but that's alright.  She wants people to notice.  She wants to be seen.

"We've got some competition tonight."  He almost looks concerned, though she imagines that she's become quite an investment.  "Might not walk away from these so easy."

"That's what your afraid of?"  She strips her cloak off and hands it to the first pair of hands she can find, brushing past the doors and into the long hallway that leads down to the hit.  Sometimes, the best fight is the one that you don't think you can get out of.

 

 

There are three opponents.

Three people that come into the ring with grins on their faces and blood in their teeth, all of them out for blood, all of them wanting to be the one to take her crown and topple the throne.  The person who defeats Audra Stanton will have their name known around the world.

(Well, the part of the world that follows dueling.  And not even professional dueling.  Just dirty, hole in the wall, you might need a tetanus shot just from stepping into the ring kind of dueling.)

The fourth is the challenge that she promised.  

He's bigger than she is, and his spells reflect it, his power falling like punches to her stomach and shoulders and teeth, knocking her down to the ground.  She spits blood onto the cement floor and stands back up, legs shaking, drawing her wand down in a flash and dodging the spell that he sends in retaliation, hearing the crowd roar, and she does not even know whose blood they want to see spilled, it is all just one wave of sound.

"Come on."  He comes too close, grabs her by the hair and pulls her in, a breach of ettiqutte.  She can smell his rancid breath, see the way his teeth have twisted and yellowed.  It's not a pleasant feeling, being under his hands.  "Everyone talks about you like you're some type of god.  Can't you even give them a show."

"I'll give you three seconds to let go of me."  She whispers it to him, so it might even look like an accident.  "One, two..."

He pushes her away but not fast enough.  The blast from her spell catches him off guard.  He had expected her to stumble and had his face half turned to the crowd, his hand half raised like he can command the screams that are coming his way, half jeers and half applause.    

He's holding a lock of her hair in his fist like it's a trophy.

It hits the ground before he does.

Audra just stares at him, at the way the left side of his chest had crumpled in from the force of her fury, like he was just some broken little doll left abandoned on the sidewalk.  It takes a moment, but the whole crowd seems to realize what had happened, a hush falling over the crowd, and it's almost funny, because the owners won't ban her because she makes them money and the duelers won't stop fighting her because they don't want to be called cowards, and no one can even turn her in, because they won't want to admit to anyone that they were at an illegal dueling club.

And anyways, it was a twisted sort of fair.  He was the one who broke the rules first.

She had fought a lot of opponents, but this was the first one that didn't get back up.

 

 

 

By the time she gets back to the forest, she is drenched in blood and weighed down by the gold in her pockets.

Fred had left.  Now it was only George, staring down at Draco with his wand out and lip curled in something like disgust, like he was only  a bug that he was trying to work up the nerve to step on.

"He left."  It was too obvious a statement, but she needed to say something to break the tension.

"Had to.  Order business."  There was a time where she would get to know what that was.  Not now.  "He told me to pass on his love."

"That was nice of him."  She crouches down by Draco and checks his pulse.   It's fluttering, but it's there.

"He's a nice guy.  But me?"  George takes a step closer, just enough that warning signs start to ping inside her head.  "Not so much anymore."

"That was kind of noticeable."  She had intended to play nice but couldn't.  There was no keeping the bite out of her words.  "Could tell when you went straight for the killing curse earlier."

"I was willing to do what you weren't."  George brushed invisible dirt of off his pants.  "What he wasn't.  Which is why I have another message."

"Yeah?"  She was just so tired.  And aching.  And bloody, her own and others, splattering her clothes and soaked into her boots and shining from her teeth, even drenching her hair.  It's falling in limp tangles around her face, plastered to her scalp with blood and sweat.  "Do tell."

"You aren't allowed to love him anymore.   Not like this.  Not in person.  Not while doing anything that could get him hurt."  The twins were in the Order now, she knew.  She wondered what they had had to do, to turn George into the kind of person that says things like this and means it.  "I love you, too.  You're my best friend in the world besides Fred.  But I love him more.  I will always, always love him more, and I will always do what it takes to keep him safe.  And to do that, you have to stay away."

She felt like crying.  She felt like puking.  "And haven't I done the same thing?" _I just killed a man for the two of you,_ she thinks, but he does not need to know that.  She does not imagine it would be a good argument.  "Haven't I done everything it takes to keep you safe?"

"You killed people.  Made other people make sacrifices at your insistence.  That's not the same thing."

"And if I refuse?"  She was walking a tight rope, and was finally about to lose her balance.  "If I just keep seeing him anyways?"

"I'll kill you.  I know you don't think I can.  But there are ways."  It was like his face was set in stone.  "And I'm asking you as someone that you used to love, Audra.  Don't make me hurt you."

She knows that he will.  She also knows that he was right about the two of them loving each other in past tense, because sometimes you grow up and life forces you to make choices that not everyone can understand.  He cannot take the fact that she had done what needed to be done, and then more than needed to be done, just because she was intoxicated by the feeling of being the one that people bow down to.  She cannot take the fact that he was willing to kill to protect his brother without pausing to see if there was a better way.  

"What are you going to tell him?"  This was not the thing they should be worrying about.  It wasn't even something they should be talking about, not until this night was buried so far into the ground that there was no chance of digging up the truth.  That's the problem with the Weasley's- they mean well, but their priorities are all turned around.  

"Nothing.  He doesn't need to know anything.  You'll just get busy.  Things will get complicated."  George crouches down and sticks his hand in front of Draco's mouth, checking if he is still breathing.  He is.  "And you'll so desperately want to see him, I'm sure, but it'll just be too dangerous to actually make contact."

"Fine."  She could feel tears burn at her eyes, but part of her must have known that this was coming ever since he tossed her locket into the woods.  That had felt like the end more than anything else.  "Fine.  But that's not what we have to deal with right now."

"You promise?"

Audra glares at him.  "Promise."  She stows her wand in her pocket.  "Now aren't you going to ask what our alibi is?"

"Fine."   He's annoyed with her.  Part of him must have been hoping that she could come back and have it all figured out.  "What's our alibi?"

"The fight club."  She throws a pile of gold at his feet, and the coins spill out, winking in the moonlight.  "He was there.  Followed me, just like he said.  And he got hurt.  They're dangerous places."

"But won't it be obvious that he was only obliviated, once we take him to St. Mungo's?"  

"No.  Now help me get him up."  George lifts Draco up from the ground and props him against the tree, and for one second, Audra thinks that she can see his eyelids flutter.  He must be waking up.  Which is terribly unfortunate for him.  "I thought of that already."

"But-,"  He goes quiet, eyeing the rock that she is holding in her hand.  "I can do it."  He already his hand outstretched.  "You don't have to."

He still loves her.  You don't try to protect people that you do not love.  But Audra's really past that point already.

"I can do it."  She rears her arm back, the muscles screaming in protest.  "I'd do anything to protect him, too."

When the rock hits and Draco slumps back down to the ground, she doesn't think even George has it in him to disagree.

 

 

When Narcissa makes it to St. Mungo's, she does not check in with the healers or the smiling witch at the help desk, just marches straight up until Audra until they are standing toe to toe.

"I'm going to ask you once."  Her voice is deadly calm.  Audra wants to shrink away but doesn't.  "What happened to my son?"

"The fight club.  He was watching me.  I didn't know."   The story falls from her mouth in choppy sentences but they fit the situation.  No one had bothered to try and poke holes in her story, not when she was covered in blood and the news of what she had done had swept across London in minutes.  "There must have been a fight, or a spell rebounded, or-,"

Narcissa hit her.  Audra went reeling back to the wall, hand to her cheek, a fresh line of blood falling from where her ring had cut the skin.

"Cissy!"  Audra's mother was there, too, and her arms went around Audra before she had the chance to regain her balance on her own.  "Don't!"

It wasn't a don't as in _don't touch my daughter,_ but don't as in _don't make a scene, people are looking, weren't you raised better than this?_   Audra can't even bring herself to be upset.

"I don't care.  I don't care, do you understand?"  She takes another step forward and Audra doesn't raise a hand to defend herself even though she can sense another slap on the way.  "Just stay away from my son."

 

 

Audra stays there for the better part of the night.

Narcissa had told her to stay away but Audra had trailed behind them into Draco's room anyways, and no one threw her out, probably because they all knew she was the only thing standing between Draco and Dumbledore.  

He doesn't wake up.  Not for good.  Sometimes his eyes flutter open and for a few moments Audra holds her breath, waiting for the accusations, but Draco only mutters garbled words in her direction and gropes for her mother's hand.  The bandage wrapping his head makes it look like he is wearing one of Quirrell's turbans, and every time she looks at it, Audra fights the bizarre urge to laugh.  But she doesn't.  There is nothing funny about this.

"Do you know what happened?"  Audra had followed the night healer out of the room.  "Just what spell? I know I shouldn't ask, and you can't tell, and he's my cousin, and well, it was my fault he was out anyways."

She can see him sizing her up, the connections he was drawing.  About how she was just a young girl concerned for her family, and she was young girl who had just happened to be the daughter of the man who had given the hospital a sizeable donation, so maybe he should just do what he asked.

"No idea.  But that's alright,"  He added, taking the sudden change of expression for worry.  "It doesn't really matter.  We know the affects, and how to treat it.  The head wound will heal, and even though the memory can't be taken back -can't return when we don't know what it was- there won't be any lasting effects of any sort."  He takes a hand to her shoulder.  "He's going to be alright.  But are you?  You look pretty roughed up."

She was still in her clothes from the fight.  It had been drawing some strange looks.  "No, I'm all good."  Audra forces a smile.  "Just need a change of clothes."

 

 

 

She can hear Emmeline's footsteps behind her, but Audra doesn't turn around, just keeps kneeling in the damp grass with the match flickering between her fingers.

Audra doesn't want to talk to her, really.  She knows it was Emmeline who had gotten suspicious.  Emmeline always had suspected that she never did say good bye to Fred, but it hadn't bothered her back when she got to be with Clary.  Now that Clary was gone, she wanted to ruin things for everyone.  If she couldn't be happy, no one could.

"What are you doing?"

Emmeline kneels down beside her.  It's her way to broach the chasm that had grown between them, but she didn't need to bother.  Audra would let her back in.  Right now, Emmeline is the only one she's got.

There are five candles spread out in front of her, throwing light dancing across the drooping bows of the weeping willow.  One for each person that she has to say good bye to.

( _Fred.  George.  Vance.  Clary.  And one for everyone she forgot, because if she had a candle for the whole list, it would take up the entire yard._ )

Audra got to her feet and turned to face her, starting to walk away.

"Letting go."

 

 

 

 

 

 


	23. Drowning

Emmeline had ruined things.

It's hard not to resent her for that, whenever Audra feels the empty space around her neck where the locket should be hanging or lays in bed thinking that this would be the time that she should be meeting Fred, but it doesn't matter.  What's done is done.  There is no going back to him, and even if she did, there would be too many things caught between them to really go back to the way it was.  There would always be her and the dueling just because it's fun, always George and the killing curse between his lips, always Fred standing between his brother and the girl he loves with his hands outstretched, trying to force them apart so they don't hurt each other.

Sometimes, without noticing, you turn into a different person overnight.

This is one of those times.

"Come on."  Audra throws her voice over her should and Emmeline follows like she is tied to her with a string.  She does not know what they are doing here, but she follows behind her anyways, because she knows that she had hurt her and is being swallowed up by guilt over it.  "Let's have some fun."

It's like de ja vu, walking the footsteps she had taken only a few months before, moving to press her palms to the window and yank the chain off the door, all of their defenses falling with a few spells, because she knows their magic and can sense how it is woven together.  It's just too easy to pick apart, and within a matter of seconds, she and Emmeline can move into the room without either of the twins noticing.

"Is this the shop?"  Emmeline doesn't bother to keep her voice down. She never does.  It's like she's always testing fate, always daring people to wake up and try and stop them.  "It's nice."

"Yeah."  Audra picks up a bottle filled with love potion and tests the weight of it her hand.  "Better than I expected, actually."  When she throws it at the wall, it shatters, and the potion rains down on them, making her skin shimmer like it had been coated in fairy dust, and Audra actually screams, one little exhalation of grief that seems to knock the wind out of her, but she cannot stop.  She had come too far to stop.  "But now it's time to tear it down."

 

 

It's all fixable, what they had done, but they leave it a wreck.

The shelves are destroyed.  Windows shattered, the glass spread out all over the street.  She had knocked through displays and unlocked the cage the pygmy puffs were in, thrown the cases of love potion into the walls until it looked like a unicorn had puked all over the place.  And she'd ripped a gash through the poster behind the cash register, right through both of their faces.

They leave their mark.

It was like a declaration, not to the world but to Fred and George, because they would know that this was her,  because she had ruined things that made it look like were a lot of destruction but was easy to fix.  And by extension they would know the signature was hers, and if that signature was hers, then all the crime and terror that preluded it must belong to her, too.

She's not really sure she wants them to know, but she would have to tell Fred the truth sometime.

It's better that he figures it out now, when she is not around to see the look on his face.

 

 

They tell her good job.

Narcissa throws the paper down on the table and Bellatrix cackles, coming up behind her to run her hand through Audra's hair in maternal fashion.  She doesn't move away from the touch like she wants too, just sinks into it.

"I see you've been busy."  Dolohov clucks his tongue, softly.  "What did this poor little shop ever do to you?"

She built it, that's what she had done.  But it was expected, for her to take her rage and her boredom and turn it into chaos, and who better to hurt than the boys she used to love?  Who better to take destroy than the ones who had turned their backs on her?  People had grown suspicious, and this was the proof that they wanted, to show them that the twins meant nothing.  That Fred meant nothing.  

And he wouldn't.  This would be the final nail in the coffin that was their crumbling relationship.

She only hoped that everyone else believed it.

(Emmeline sure did.  Audra could see the way she's been watching her out of the corner of her, being extra nice, a little too quiet, like she is waiting for her to snap.  But that's good.  Emmeline cannot keep secrets.  She writes the truth of things across her face.  If she's taken in by the lie, everyone else will be, too.)

"So has the prophet."  She picks up the paper to read the headline, eyes dancing over the picture covering the front page.  It's features Fred standing in the front of his shop with his hand over his mouth, taking it all in, and George at his side, picking up the abandoned products and throwing them back to the ground.  "they got the story out fast."

"It's not like you were subtle."  Bellatrix smiled at her.  Audra couldn't tell if it was approval or indulgence.  "From what I heard, the whole neighborhood knew you were there."

"And yet no one tried to stop us."

"Well, people are rather afraid of you,"  Narcissa said, as calmly as if they were talking about the weather rather than random acts of terrorism.  "I suspect no one even considered it."

 

 

"How are you doing it?"

Audra doesn't turn around, not at first, just keep staring into the fire. This was not  a confrontation she was looking forward to, but she had seen it coming.

"What do you mean?"

Emmeline is standing in the doorway.  She comes in without being invited and sits in the other chair, looking into the fire, too, as if it had answers.  They both know what they are talking about, but neither of them are stupid enough freely.  Everything has ears now.

"I mean that it must hurt you.  Acting like this has to make you feel all cut open inside."  Emmeline is hunched over in her chair, and Audra can see the angles of her shoulder blades.  She had lost weight since Clary disappeared, and for someone who was always lean, now she was too thin, like she could snap under the slightest bit of pressure.  Audra could probably break her if she wanted to.  "It does to me."

It's dangerous territory.  One misstep could make either of them admit something that they should not even be thinking about.  

Audra leans out to take hold of Emmeline's hand, the one with the ring.  Clary has a matching one.  She wraps her hand so tight that it must hurt and just hangs on.  "Whatever it is, whatever you think or feel or want, you have to get rid of it, bury it, cover it in so many scars that you can't even feel it anymore.  It doesn't matter what you have to do to get there.  This isn't about what we want, it's what we have to do to survive, you said so yourself."  Emmeline was crying, silently, the tears slipping down her face and her chest rising in time with the little gasps that were bursting from her mouth.  "We're not kids anymore.  There's no time for mistakes.  We win or we die."

She drops the ring into the palm of Emmeline's hand, forces her fingers to close over it with enough force that she thought she might have broken them, but she isn't sorry.  Pain is the best teacher.  Pain is a lesson that everyone remembers.

 

 

 

When she sees her next, two days later at the family breakfast, her hand is bare.

 

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

She's got a mission.

Not from Dumbledore.  That'd be preferable, but directions from the Order have dried up and now Audra has spent the past few weeks stumbling around in the dark just hoping that she has made the right choices.  The only thing she'd gotten was a warning to Snape for her to lie low, that Dumbledore thought that she might be compromised.

After all, if you've let your guard down once, enough that you lead the enemy right to the one thing you're trying to keep close to your chest, you can do it again.

"I need something."  He had called Audra down to talk to her in private, and now it is just the two of them on either side of this long table, Nagini slithering under her feet.  She hates it, not because it's unsettling to be alone with him, but because it is exhausting- the strain to keep her every muscle from flinching when Nagini's scaly skin brushes against her legs, watching every word for a scent of disrespect, having to push back the presence of his mind trying to comb through hers.  It's a dangerous game, figuring out how much to give, and one that she always feels like she's on the verge of losing.  "Something rather important."

Audra leans forward, nails clicking on the mahogany wood of the table.  She knows her lines well.  "Anything."

"It's not something you have.  But it is something you can get me."  The Dark Lord doesn't blink.  Audra had noticed it in her first few weeks in his inner circle.  At first, she thought that it was because he was always trying to sink into other people's thoughts and emotions and couldn't bare to give away those small moments of connection, but now she thinks that he just doesn't feel the need.  Voldemort has cut away everything human about himself, down to the smallest gestures, and she doesn't even think he meant to do it.  "Something _only_   you can get me."

A mission.  A direction.  A distraction.  Audra could have almost cried from relief.  

"Then I'll do it."  She didn't ask what it was.  He would tell her, when he thought she needed to know.  And no matter how bad it was, Audra would do it, because she had her orders from Dumbledore lurking in the back of her mind- _stay put.  No matter what it takes._   It doesn't look like they'll be turning her way anytime soon.  "No matter the cost."

 

 

A fun fact: The world's largest collection of information was located in Egypt.

It's not a school, or a government, or a museum.  It's a library, filled with ordinary books and staffed by ordinary people, but built on a not so ordinary story, birthed from a conqueror's mind and a teacher's guiding hand, and destroyed by the war.   It was one of the great wonders of the intellectual world, lost to history because people were afraid.

Lost to muggle history, that is.

Not so much for the wizards.

 

 

It's one hundred and fifty-seven levels tall.

There are over three million books, historical accounts and journals of great wizards and books on science, the scribbles of mathematicians and the blueprints of architects, great big grease pencil drawings for inventions and calculations that had not yet come to fruition but might be, someday, because these documents were preserved.

It operates on government grants.  No one from the muggle world had known how it disappeared, because it had burned down in a fire and then melted into thin air, the evidence of the destruction and information inside along with it.  Their historians had puzzled over the destruction of the Library of Alexandria for decades, and no one could create a concrete theory as to what happened to it.

Audra had learned all this on her ministry-approved tour, the one given to tourists of all shapes and sizes, though who goes on vacation just to look at old books, Audra doesn't know.  (Hermione, probably.)

"I heard there were other levels."  It was her third time taking the tour, her fourth day there.  She had covered every inch of the place, saying that her mother was here on business and she was just killing time until the real vacation could start, and no one bothered her, because Audra was obviously someone who had grown up in an important family. It's amazing, the things you could get away with just by a smile and a touch to someone's arm.  "Secret ones.  Full of books that the ministries of the world don't think are fit for the common knowledge."

"That's insane."  The boy beside her was laughing at her.  He shrank back at the glare she sent his way but stood his ground.  "They wouldn't hold information."

"Oh, yeah?"  Not good.  Not good to pick a fight.  She wasn't to draw attention to herself.  In and out.  In and out, with no one the wiser.  "Are you sure about that?  Because if that was true, we would all know what was growing in the department of mysteries."

"They keep that secret because it's dangerous."  He seemed shocked at the idea of her speaking out against the government so brazenly, though when she stopped to think about it, very few people do.  "Half formed spells, strange creatures.  That sort of thing."

"And maybe so is what's underneath our feet."

"I'd agree with you.  But it's a myth."  The tour guide was anxious to steer the conversation back on track, not liking how anxious the rest of the group had become and liking how she had to work to regain the attention even less.  "There's nothing underneath this but seventy feet of solid stone.  Believe me.  I've been all over this place."

 _Yes,_ Audra thought, her lip curling up in a smirk but dipping her head in acknowledgement, _because certainly the might of ministry would not be enough to hide things from the likes of us, if they didn't want them to be seen._

 

 

But the thing is, Audra knew, the ministry did keep secrets.  It made mistakes and then told lies to cover them up, reshaped history to suit the story they wanted to build their legacies out of.  they didn't believe in a commonwealth of knowledge, they believed in keeping it close, because that's really the only way to keep people under your control.

(Knowledge fights ignorance.  Knowledge destroys hate.  Knowledge throws the light on the darkness, shows people that the monsters they had been afraid of had only been shadows the whole time.  Dumbledore had told her that, once, talking about this very library, like he knew that one day she would be standing right in the middle of it.  For a man who speaks out about transparency, he does seem to know an awful lot more than he would ever tell her.)

She knows it because Fred had gotten to walk through it, five years earlier, when their parents won the ministry lottery and took a trip up here to visit Bill.  Mr. Weasley had pulled some strings and gotten the twins a tour, because they had been into things like this back then, government secrets and forbidden things.  And when they came home, they had told her, about the great books shelves and the scrolls so black and rotted it seemed like they would crumble into dust if you so much as breathed on them, and how at the end there had been a room guarded by aurors and staffed by unspeakables, holding the worst spells in the world, all of magic's secrets that were not fit for the eyes of regular people.

(But sometimes, knowledge can be tempting.  Fill you up and weigh you down, gently at first, take you by the hand and lead you over to the cliff, and tell you that it would be okay to jump off it, if only you knew how to fly.  Never mind that humans were not made to reach such heights.)

(Dumbledore had told her that, too.  She had thought he was talking about Voldemort and why he kept all those dark magic books tucked away in his office.  Now she thinks he was only talking about her.)

That, regardless of what the tour guides said each time she asked them, was one of the most dangerous places on earth, and it's where she was headed.

 

 

On the fifth night, she sits in a bar.

It would be her last night in Egypt.  Audra is almost sad about it, because she didn't get to see any of the other things that this country was so famous for, and once she left, she would never be able to come back.  The wizarding community would be out for her head.  Every last one of them.

She sees him before he sees her.  There was a moment where Audra could have gotten away, walked into the haze of smoke by the bar or dived under the table, but she stays and he turns to stare right at her just like she knew he would, his dragon tooth earring catching the light.

He moves to the door, jerking his head for her to follow him outside.  Audra watches, tracking his movements, debating.  It would be safer for both of them if she did not move, but she has spent so long playing it safe that she wants to stick her hand over the flames just this once.  

And besides.

She wants to know if Fred is alright.  There are so few moments where she gets to be certain that he's alive.

Audra slides out of the booth and draws the hood of her cloak out over her head.  Out in the street, she blinks up at the neon lights in the window, scanning for Bill, but doesn't see him, not until he grabs her by the arm and apparates them both into the alley.

"Jesus."  She rubs at her arm and crouches to the ground, stomach heaving.   Audra always hated the feeling of it, like her entire being was forced to condense.  "They should really have a spell to stop you from being able to do that."

(Like, really.  That would be her first order of business once this whole mess with the war was over.  It was a gaping hole in their safety precautions.)

"Save it."  Bill was not like his brothers.  He was not soft, and he was not made stupid by sentiment.  He liked her well enough, but he was not willing to risk life and limb to keep her cover.  If they get caught here, she's on her own.  Audra isn't sure why she's comforted by the though.  "What are you doing here?"

"The less you know the better."  It's not a lie, but it feels like one.

"On whose orders then?"

"No one's."  She throws her hair back and lets her wand flash in the light coming from the street.  She was going to get her mission done tonight, no matter what Bill thought.  "Maybe I'm just over here on vacation."

"But you're not."  He eyed her wand, but didn't bother to pull out his own.  "You here to hurt people?"

"No.  I'm here to take something."  She stuffs her wand back into her boot and ducks further into the alley.  He follows her.  "And I meant it when I said the less you know about it, the better things will be.  For both of us."

"Are people going to get hurt?"

"Only if they get in my way." 

"So yes."  Bill crosses his arms and glares at her.  He's angry at her, sickened by her, maybe.  Apparently he disapproves.  "It seems like you always find a way to knock other people down."

"I do what I have to."  She finds herself repeating that more and more these days.  Audra's still pretty sure it's true, but no one else seems to believe her.  

"That man you killed at the club?  That was because you had to?"   He wants to hit her.  He wants to hit her but won't because she's a girl, and because she's the twin's friend, but even that was running thin.  She was wondering how long she could keep banking on Fred's affection and Dumbledore's orders to keep there from being a target put on her back.  "He had a family, Audra."

"He signed up to fight.  He stepped into that ring.  And I didn't want to do that.  We've got families, too."  She took a step closer to him, tilting her head to look up at him.  "And in case you hadn't head, that man's only dead because I was protecting yours."

 _And because he grabbed me._   She rubs at the inside of her wrist where his nails had scraped against her, and her scalp tingles from where he yanked her hair out. _People don't get to do that anymore._

"The only reason they needed saving was because you led Draco right to them."

"Does it matter?"  His stare is too intense and she has to look away.  "I made a mess and I cleaned it up."

"And now you're about to go make a bigger one."  He did not look like the Bill she knew, the one that would play at being her big brother.  This was someone different.  "Don't you ever get tired of the pile of bodies you leave behind you?"

"Ask Dumbledore."  It was so unfair.  She had wanted to leave, she had tried, she said it was done, but Dumbledore asked to stay no matter who she had to hurt, because there would come a time where she would get to save more people than she had ruined.  Tip the scales back in her favor.  And anyone she did hurt, well- that was for the greater good.  "He's the one who keeps putting them in front of me."

Bill searches her for a moment, and Audra knows, in the way that she always knows with that spine tingling certainty right before a fight, that they are only words away from drawing their wands.  

"You can't blame Dumbledore for what you did."

"I'm not."  She isn't.  It's hard to blame anyone when you know they are only trying to make the best choices for everyone.  Not the good ones.  In this world, there are no good choices.  "I'm just saying that he was the one who asked me to do it."

 _And like you're one to throw stones,_ she thought, because she had seen the little Jensen girl brought in with cuts all over her face and arms and Bill's name suddenly added to the top of every death eater's list.  

"George says he's sorry."  The change of topic threw her off balance for a moment, but Audra is grateful.  They were running out of time.  "For what he did.  He asked us all to tell you that, if we ever ran into you."

She's glad that she took the risk of talking to him for that alone.  Audra didn't want to add to George's regrets at the end of this war.

"Tell him there's nothing to be sorry for.  He was only doing what he had to."  She didn't like to think of him that night.  He had been too ready to curse Draco than she had been prepared for, even though Audra was only inches away from doing the exact same thing.  She guesses she was just used to being the strong one.  "And Fred?"

"He still loves you."  Bill's voice was hard again.  "I keep telling him that he shouldn't."

"Does he know?"  This was really what she had been wondering, between all those long hours of being afraid.  If he knew.   If he still wanted her.  If there was any way for a person like him to want a person like her, though she had thought that before the war.  "What I've done?"

"He's got ideas."

"I really was only doing what I had to.  To protect him, and my family."  Audra's nails were digging into her palms.  They leave deep crescent moons in her skin when she pulls them away.  "If that even matters anymore."

"You're crossing lines, Audra."  He held onto her hand and smoothed his thumb over her now bloody palms, soothing the ache.  "There's things we don't do.  Things that maybe make us no better than them.  Maybe even worse."

"Well,"  Audra backed away, leaving him to stand by the dumpster.  There would be no comfort here.  No forgiveness.  "I guess that's why Dumbledore gave me the job instead of you."

 

 

 

It's easier for her to get in than it is to get out.

Mostly because the door was unlocked and the guards were already spilled out across the floor.

Audra stands there for a moment, looking around the chamber hall with her wand clutched tight her in hand, because of all the things she thought could go wrong, another terrorist planning their attack on the very same night as her own was not one of them.  Even she didn't have that bad of luck.

"Oh, come on."  The voice made her jump, but Audra sighs in relief all the same.  "You didn't really think I would let you have all the fun, did you?"

Audra's so happy to see her that she actually hugs her, then pokes at one of the guards with the toe of her shoe.  "What did you do to them?"

Emmeline rolls her eyes and yanks her hair into a pony tail.  "I put a bit of sleeping draft in their coffee.  And some free cookies.  And the tank of the water fountain."

"How'd you know that they're the only ones who use the water fountain?"

"I didn't," Emmeline says, falling into step beside her as they head into the stacks.  "There's going to be people falling passing out all over Egypt for the next three months until they track it down."

"Don't you think that they'll figure out the source before then?"

"No."  They should talk softer.  Their voices would carry, and people would come running, and then they would waste precious time in a fight too far away from their target.  "It's delayed a few hours, depending on height and weight."

Audra snorts, and then she laughs out loud, because it's funny even when it shouldn't be, and also because it was such an unnecessary, messy way of taking these people out but it was just so _Emmeline_ that she couldn't even have it in her to be angry.  All she felt was fond.  With her guard having to be up against everyone else, she doesn't have room to be bitter towards Emmeline over anything.

"Come on."  They are at the hallway where they are supposed to turn towards ministry headquarters, but Emmeline is heading to the steps.  "It's this way."

"That's your mission.  I've got my own.  Go fast, Audra."  Audra feels the knot of tension rising in her stomach, she wants to reach out and stop her and keep something terrible from happening, but she doesn't.  "You've got thirty minutes before we have to get out of here."

 

 

 

She runs instead of walks, not because she needs to hurry, but because it's scarier here than anyplace she had gone, with the vaulted ceiling and the bookshelves that rise up so high you cannot see the top, and even though she is the only one in there, she can feel people watching, like the books have eyes and are whispering warnings to the scrolls up ahead.

Audra doesn't feel bad over the aurors.  It's their jobs to protect things that they don't care about, and it's a job that they chose despite knowing the risk.  Dying is something they signed up for, and they all do have to die, this time.  She doesn't have a disguise.  Audra can't risk word getting out and giving someone the chance to put her name with the face.

That's not going to be something that haunts her.  That's just something she had to do, and it was a fair fight, even if she did.  This, though, pushing open those heavy doors and hearing her heels click on the marble flooring- this is not a fair fight.

"Please."  The girl is so thin and pale that Audra can see the veins mapping the inside of her arms.  She is only sixteen.  Audra knows because she remembers her from school.  They had had neighboring beds the night Sirius Black came to Azkaban, and whispered until Percy finally barked at them to go to sleep.  She had wanted to be a historian back then.  This was probably some type of internship, her first summer away from home.  Her name was Anna  "Please, don't hurt me."

 _But I have to,_ Audra thinks, and almost cries at the thought, because this was not in the cards, this wasn't supposed to be hard, she was not supposed to see anyone she knows.  

"Show me to the tomb and I won't."  She levels the wand at her face and Anna fights back tears, taking a shuddering breath.  "Just let me take what I want and go."

"They'll stop you."

"No,"  Audra says, and is surprised at how confident she sounds.  "They won't."

She closes up the book she is working on before she does anything else, slipping it back into its velvet covering, and then leads her down a short hallway, tapping her wand against the door three times.  "No tricks,"  Audra reminds her, but didn't really need to bother.  This was not someone trained to fight back, or lay down the lives for something they didn't understand.   This was only a girl.

(That's what she was, once.  Just a girl. She can't even remember what that feels like.)

As they walk, people try to get in their way.  Alarms blare and they come running, shouting, wands raised high, but Audra only sweeps them off to the side.  They fly through the air and crash into the stacks, fall to the ground with the scrolls piling over top of them, or crash into one of the many metal work tables.  With each new person, Anna cries out and then she stops making any noise at all, which is even worse.

"There."  She points out a shaky finger, and Audra can see it inside the glass casing, shaking in time with the explosions coming from overhead.  "It's right there.  Take it."

"No."  Anna's eyes well up in tears and her sobs start all over again.   They're loud and messy, but no one is there to see her cry but Audra.  And Audra doesn't have the option to care anymore.  

" _Please,_ " she says, and pushes back against her, even though Audra was too strong and had come too far to stop now.

"Just reach out and take it."

" _Please._ "

"Anna."  Audra takes her by the back of the neck and draws her close, almost hugging her but not quite.  "You're going to have to."

"I won't."  There's a stroke of bravery in everyone, once they realize that they have nothing left to lose.  It coms to Anna now, making her straighten up and stop her crying.  "I won't help you."

"I'm not going to give up a choice.  Please,"  Audra says, and now she is the one begging.  "Let's do this the easy way."

 

 

Nothing is ever easy, but Audra does get to take the book, explosions sounding overhead and Anna writhing at her feet.

She's not making any sound, just clutching at her hand, staring at the skin as it blackens and withers and melts away.  It's a pain beyond sound, beyond tears, beyond any expression.  It's slow, too, because even though the only possible penalty for trying to take what was inside this case was death, the guards wanted to have a chance to find out how they had made it as far into the library as they did.

(They would promise them a cure, if they told.  One of the librarians had told George that, when he asked.  He also told them that there wasn't one.  It was the most horrible death that magic had ever created, and Audra had just unleashed it on a girl who only wanted to live among books for the rest of her life.)

"It'll be okay,"  Audra wants to kneel on the ground and hold her but doesn't have the time, so she just tucks the book under her arm and levels her wand at her face once more.  "This isn't going to hurt."

There's a flash of green, and then a bit more quiet than there had been the moment before.  Audra had thought killing her would feel like an act of mercy, but it hadn't.  It just felt like al the rest.

 

 

"Emmeline."  They meet on the street, the heat coming from the building licking at their faces.  They have to keep stepping back in order to stay away from the sparks, ducking into the shadows to keep from being spotted by the police cars roaring down the street.  The Library of Alexandria had just been birthed back into existence in the middle of modern Egypt, the enchantments stripping away as it burned.  "What did you do?"

It would be chaos for the muggles, no matter the cover story that they made up.  It would be a head ache for the ministry, with everyone running around trying to round up the muggles who had seen something.  A job years long, and yet some would slip through the cracks.  And terror to any witch or wizard who had heard what happened. 

The Dark Lord like chaos.  He thrives on terror.  

"My job."  The front of the library crumbles, folding in on itself like a stack of cards.  "Just like you."  Emmeline raises her wand, ready to paint the sky with their names.  This was their legacy.  "Shall we?"

Audra walked away.  This was one thing she did not want to claim, but it didn't matter.  They all would know it was her in the end.

 

 

 


	25. The Sand in the Hourglass is Running Thin

Once, back before this whole mess had really started, Vance had told her that she was going to be something great.

The first time he said it was on the night she took the dark mark. It was after, when everyone else had already left and Emmeline had retired to one of the guest rooms for the night, and he came to her room with a cauldron full of bubbling potion. He held it out to her like a peace offering.

"It's going to hurt for a while. I can't make that go away from you." He had stood in the doorway like he wasn't quite sure if he was going to be allowed in the room, and that hurt, too, because there was a time where Audra could remember him being the one person she trusted most in the world. "But this can numb it for a while."

She had let him, because Audra had been strong for everyone else these past few weeks and for once, she wanted someone to take care of her. Now she thinks it was a mistake to let him go on believing that he was her protector.

"I've never killed anyone before." She couldn't get it out of her head, those first few nights, and kept batting at her knees to get rid of the feel of phantom fingers. Audra wouldn't have been surprised if the man she killed came back to haunt him. "Does it ever get easier?"

"I wouldn't know." He does not look at her but he says it like the admission makes him some type of coward. "I never had to."

"Then why did I?"

"Because you're better than me. Stronger. Than all of us, really." Vance finally tears his eye away from her arm and the dark mark painted onto it in order to stare at her face. He puts his fingers under her chin to lift her head up so she can look him in the eyes. There's no jealousy there, not from him, only a fierce kind of pride. "And he knows it."

"I don't think being able to kills someone makes you strong." Audra had whispered the words at the time and still they made her nervous, what a sign of weakness could do to her now. "I think it tears you apart."

"But you did what you needed to. That's what makes people strong. Every good leader needs to be willing to do what it takes to win." Is this winning? It didn't feel like it. "You're going to be the best of us."

"I never wanted to be the best."

"But you are." He was angry, then, angry that she had this gift and didn't even want it. "You're going to be his righthand man, Audra Stanton. Mark my words."

He wasn't wrong. The only thing he said that didn't come true was that he thought he would always be standing by her side to protect her.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She gets all sorts of jobs after she stole the book in Egypt. Some of them are easy, some of them are hard, but they all involve other people getting hurt so she can do the Dark Lord's bidding.

"Please." She has to lean across the table to keep from being heard. Across from her, Snape narrows his eyes and motions to Rosmerta for another drink. "I don't want to do this anymore."

"Getting tired?" His lip curled up at her. "Bored, perhaps? Task not to your liking? You accepted this assignment, Audra."

"I didn't. Not this." She taps her knuckles too hard on the table and draws a few anxious stares. "You knew that I had no idea it was going to be like."

"I did try to tell you." Just when she thinks he is going to send her away, Snape softens. "Dumbledore is confident that you'll only have to be there for a little while longer. You just have to hang on, Audra."

"And how many more people will I have hurt before Dumbledore decides to include me in his master plan?" She digs her nails into the wood and feels it splinter. "I could just walk away."

"No. Because that leaves people vulnerable. Your parents. Emmeline. Even the twins." Snape's voice was a drawl, like she was just a child throwing a tantrum that he had been given the task of reasoning with. "Everyone will be at risk if you leave."

"They're at risk if I stay. You can't protect anyone."

"Only yourself? Is this what this is?"

"I'm helping him win." She leans in even further, drops her voice lower. "And we both know it."

"Not," He said, standing to throw a few galleons down on the table. It's a generous tip. "Not according to Dumbledore." Snape sweeps off towards the door and Audra tries to follow, knocked aside by tables and other patrons. She makes it to the street just in time to see Snape fastening his cloak around his shoulders.

"We did warn you that this would be quite the dangerous game, Audra." Snape raised a shoulder in an apologetic shrug. "We never said for who."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She gets another job, interrupting a prisoner transport.

Audra doesn't know who for until she's there. She had tipped the train off its track and rips the side of the car wide open like she's tearing open a tin can. It's a mess of bodies and she picks through all of them, circling around moaning men and reaching hands until she makes it to the back of the car, where a man is tied up in chains.

"Hey, Fenrir." She keeps her voice calm on purpose even though every cell in her body is telling her to turn around, that this man is more terrible than anyone else she had brushes elbows with, that she cannot justify letting him go. "You got plans for tonight?"

He raises his head, revealing lank hair and yellowing teeth and eyes that can see straight through the darkness, and Audra knows that he does not understand. "Bella?" He asks, and yanks forward, his arms straining against the iron that has kept him glued to the wall.

"My name's Audra." She comes closer, close enough that she can wrap her arms through the twisted mess of chains and lean in to be face to face with him. "And I'm here to set you free."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It's only when she gets home, Fenrir safely delivered to his den, that she realizes what day it is.

Valentines day.

"There was a gift for you. On your windowsill. I put it on your desk." Emmeline is sitting in the chair, clearly having waited all day for her to come home. "Got a secret admirer that I don't know about?"

Audra didn't answer, just walks over to stare at the little origami figure prowling around on her desk. It's her patronus- a panther. There's only one person in the world that knows what that is.

It was an incredibly risky move, something not worth the risk, but even so, she's grateful. She had been so worried, and this, finally, was proof that not only did he forgive her, Fred still loved her enough to risk getting caught over Valentine's day.

"Any idea who it is?"

Emmeline's voice brings Audra back to the present, and she swipes tears away from her eyes.

"No." She was good at lying, but not good enough. Emmeline knew, even if she wasn't going to say anything. "None at all."

 


	26. Chapter 26

When the world ends, it doesn't go up in smoke and flames like she had thought.

It's quiet.  It's an empty explosion that only reverberates through her own head, tsunami waves of panic that drag her under.

"No."  The word bursts from her mouth before she can really recognize what she's saying, because she has to say _something,_ anything at all to explain this away.  Even though there's no possible way for that to happen.  "Wormtail."  Audra stands so fast that her chair topples backwards with a bang, and everyone stares at her- Emmeline, Bellatrix, Narcissa, Draco, her own mother.  No one is moving except for Wormtail.  " _Please._ "

"I don't like to be called that."  He looks so much like a rat, a quivering little coward who had finally been given the upper hand.  "I believe I've told you that before."

Another one of Dumbledore's lessons come round to slap her in the face, about how you must always treat other with respect, even the ones you consider to be beneath you.  Even the people who disgust you, _especially_ them, because the people you are kind to are much less likely to stab you in the back.  And here Audra had thought she was terrible enough to ward them all off.  

"Peter.  Peter."  Hands are reaching for wands, and hers is across the room.  Audra can see Emmeline start to stand, just a little stretch of her hand towards the knife in the middle of the table, but Audra shakes her head to warn her away.  She would not drag anyone else down with her.  "You don't have to do this."

"I know I don't have to."  He's a wretched thing.  A rat, a cockroach, something fit only to be smashed underneath her boots.  "But I really would like to."

Audra can't even find a way to defend herself.  She could only stare, openmouthed, as the pictures fluttered to the ground and spilled out over the tabletop, hundreds of them, all of her mistakes staring her right in the face.

"Merlin, Wormtail."  Emmeline picked one up and held it to the light, as if to check her authenticity.  "How long have you been stalking her?"

It was her, going back as far as Hogwarts.  Her and Fred, sitting by the fountain.  Her and Clary and Emmeline, walking arm in arm down the street in Hogsmeade.  Her standing alone outside of Snape's house.   And more, worse, her drinking a butterbeer with her eyes on Fred's shop at the beginning of the year, her with her palms pressed to the windows, a blurred silhouette of figures taken through the window, and then her leaving the next morning dressed in Fred's clothes, and she remembers, wildly, how she had thought it would be better to leave in the cover of darkness but it had felt too nice in Fred's arms to walk away.

 _Hide in plain sight,_ she hears her father's voice, and the thought makes her want to curl in on herself. _Wasn't that always the rule?_

"You're disgusting."  Audra spat the words out because it was the last defense she had.  "Pathetic."

"Probably."  Wormtail picks up another picture, this one of her with her arms around Fred's waist, that locket hanging from her neck, right after the funeral when she had just vowed to make the world pay in blood for what she had to do to Vance.  "But I don't think they'll care, do you?"

 

 

 

They send her to her room, eventually, after Emmeline had lunged across two chairs and three sets of plates for Wormtail's throat and Draco pulled her off, after Bellatrix had punched her in the face so hard Audra's lip was streaming blood, after her mother started crying and Narcissa pulled her from the room.

It felt like a suggestion, but Audra knew that it was a prison.  She was good, but so was Bellatrix, and her aunt had more people on her side.

Dolohov was guarding the door.  They had taken her wand.  There was no way for her to leave or fight back.  The only thing left to her was to die.

The door clicks open, and Emmeline slides in.  She looks like she's been crying.  "They sent me to you.  They said to get dressed."  She hiccups over her words, trying to suppress sobs.  "He's coming to see you."

Audra does not ask who.

 

 

She gets ready for the night like she's preparing for war.

They had taken her wand, but that does not mean she intends to go defenseless- she sticks knives up her sleeves and to the inside of her thigh, shoves one of Fred's mini grenades that he had made her ( _a surprising effect to a failed batch of fireworks_ ) down into her boot.  

Audra takes her time getting ready, both to stall and also because she wants to look good for this.  She would not die cowering at his feet like Emmeline had been ready to do, and she would not give up Fred for the chance of false redemption.  No matter how this night plays out, everything would come to an end.

(Audra's almost relieved.  She's just so, so tired.)

"My Lord."  She trails her fingers along the bannister and moves down the row of death eaters to kneel at the end of the table, right at his feet, head bowed and every inch of her screaming to stand up.  It goes against everything she had been taught to come here, defenseless.  "I can explain."

"Can you?"  His voice is too soft, too dangerous, less like the safety clicking off and more like his hand was already on the trigger, because they already knew the answer.  She couldn't.  

"Please.  I've done everything you've asked of me."  His hand twitches on his wand and the plea that was on her lips switches to something else, an outcry of _spare them, do whatever you want to me, but let them live_ and she imagines Snape in this exact same position, begging for the life of Lilly Potter, the catalyst for all of this.  It's funny how history repeats itself.  "You know I'm telling you the truth."

"You have done everything," He says, and he picks up a handful of the pictures, this time a set of her back at that Halloween party, and she suddenly remembers the problem with being somewhere where no one knows who you are- you do not know who they are, either.  He throws them at her and she flinches away.  The force was too hard and the card was too sharp and when she raises her arm to block her face, the edges shred her skin.  "Everything,"  He repeats, and all she can do is stare at the blood splattered on the floor, "But one."

 

 

She screams.

Audra hadn't intended to, because everyone was watching and she wanted to die in the way that she had pretended to live, strong, unbreakable, but then the pain spikes and builds and she just can't help herself anymore, the sound wrenching itself from her mouth like it is its own separate being.

"Does it hurt?"  Bellatrix screeches, straddling her, face bent down to meet her. Audra is splayed out on the floor beneath her without even the strength or the will to sit up.  Everything hurts, and they are showing no sign of stopping.  She wondered how she could ever thought this woman had it in her to be kind.  "Audra."  Bellatrix grabs her face and the nails dig into her skin.  "Does it hurt?"

She wasn't going to answer their questions.  That was the plan, but it was one she had to give up on, because it was so much easier to play along.  "Yes,"  She moans out, just a breath, but it must have been to quiet because Bellatrix jams the dagger ( _the one she had given Audra for her birthday so many months ago_ ) at her and twists.  "Yes, _please,_ it hurts!"

Bellatrix smiled and stood up, the pressure lifting.  She didn't have to use the knife, she could have used her wand, but she liked it- like to be close, to make it personal, to be able to see the look in someone's eyes when they finally give up.  

"Good."  Bellatrix smiles down at her and then kicks out at her ribs, making Audra curl in on herself to protect from further hits.  "That's good.  But we're just getting started."

 

 

There is nothing left to her but the pain.

Audra latches onto it, because at least it is proof that she is still alive and has not given up yet, but it is just so hard, every nerve in her body on fire and shockwaves of pain echoing through her body as the spell lifts.  She has been here so long that she cannot remember when it all started, only that it had something to do with Fred and she must keep from giving up because she is the only person that might be able to protect him, and she has to protect him, because it was her mistake that put him in danger.  Her love.  Her stupid sentiment.

"Are you ready to confess?"  The pain lifts for a moment and so does the haze around her eyes, long enough that she can see Voldemort standing over her.  He nudges at her with his foot and rolls her over onto her back.  "To tell the truth?"

She doesn't even have the ability to control her own motions before.  Audra had seen it happen before, under the cruciatus curse, where muscles snap and bones break and nerves fry leaving nothing but a shell of a body behind.  Very few people would have the stomach or the ability to take it that far, but Bellatrix is not one of those people.  

Audra almost says yes.  They know the truth anyways, and they're going to go after Fred no matter what, and there was nothing that she could do to stop it.  Why should she prolong the pain, when it all comes to the same conclusion?  But then her head drops to the floor and she catches sight of Emmeline, standing in the ring of death eaters with tears on her face and looking like she might be sick.  Draco's hand is on her arm, holding her back, and Emmeline stays immobile even though she should be here, kneeling at Audra's side.

She doesn't ever move to help her, but she does shake her head no, and it's all the reminder that Audra needs.

"Kill me,"  She gasps out, and she is not sure who she is talking to, if it a taunt or a plea or a declaration of her allegiance.   

It doesn't really matter.  They won't listen.  The Dark Lord is not done with her yet.

 

 

 

Wormtail is the one to take her down to the dungeons.

Emmeline had started forward, but the relief was too clear on her face and Voldemort only had to hold out a hand to stop her in her tracks.  "No."  His lips were curled into a semblance of a smile.  "There will be no friendly visits for her."

So Wormtail it was, wrapping an arm around her waist and heaving her to her feet, half dragging, half carrying her across the floor and down to the dungeon steps.  On any other day, in any other moment, Audra could have him whimpering at her feet in half a second, but this is not a regular day.  This is the day everything fell apart.

He dumps her to the ground and Audra lunges up at him, grasping to the slippery shine of his metal hand.  The fingers twitch and close around her wrist, crushing the bone, and even though it hurts, neither of them are making a move to back down.

"I'm going to kill you,"  She says, and he rips the metal hand free, using it to backhand her across the face.  Audra tumbles to the floor and spits out blood before crawling back to him.

"You won't."  He seemed confident but he still looked afraid.  Cowards are always afraid.  "You're done for."

"I will.  Not soon.  But there's going to be a day where you aren't watching your back and I'm going to tear you apart, piece by piece, just like you wanted them to do to me."  And to Fred, which was even worse.  "And it's going to hurt."

The words are brave, but when he slams the dungeon door in her face and she hears the locks click in place behind him, Audra didn't seem so tough anymore.

 

 

 


	27. Running the Gauntlet

She loses track of time.

It's dark in the dungeon.  There are lamps, but no one bothered to light them, and Audra spends most of her days huddled in the corner with her eyes on where she knew the door to be, waiting for Wormtail to push through her daily allowance of food and water.

(At least she thinks it's daily.  Audra's so hungry that she can't tell, but the time stretches out so far between feedings that she thinks it must be once a day.  Or maybe they really are feeding her three times a day and the hours just last longer here, down in the darkness all alone.)

Emmeline comes to visit her even though she shouldn't.  It's the only thing that Audra has to look forward to, but she couldn't risk it that often.

"Are you alright?"  Emmeline leaves the door open a few inches so she can find her way to where Audra is sitting.  "Have they hurt you?"

"You mean again?"  Audra's voice is too brittle, like it's on the verge of breaking and disappearing completely.  In the immediate days after Wormtail had stuck her here, she had tested out her voice and tried to scream but all that came out was a rasp.  "Don't worry, Emmeline."  Audra reaches out to hold her hand and tries for a smile, but all it does is make the scab on her lip split open again.  "I'm fine."

"You aren't."  There are tears choking her voice, and hands find their way to Audra's face.  She flinches, but this time, it is a gentle touch.  "I should have done something."

"No."  It still hurt to heave herself onto her knees, but Audra does, coming closer so Emmeline could see every speck of blood still staining her face.  She couldn't waste any of the water to wash it away.  "Then it would be two of us in this place instead of one."

"At least we would be together."

"We had to split paths eventually."  Audra slumped back against the wall and coughs out the words, already tired.  She had done nothing but sleep since she was put in here.  Sleep and scream.  "I'm just glad it's me in this dungeon instead of you."

Emmeline didn't say it, but from the look on her face, it's clear that so was she.

 

 

 

They come for her in the third week.

Audra had known, in the back of her mind, that they would come for her.  If they wouldn't need her, they would have killed her already, and Draco's entire plan centers around her involvement.  The Dark Lord wanted Dumbledore dead more than he wanted his best soldier stuck in the dark.  And this way, he got a bit of both.

When the door finally slams open, Audra closes her eyes.  She's been in the dark so long that the light blinds her, and it's only because she has known Emmeline since they were four that she can tell it is her- the perfume, the gentle hand on her shoulder, the hurried click of her heels.

"Come on."  Emmeline grabs Audra underneath the arms and hauls her to her feet, only to catch her again when her knees buckle.  "You have to get up." Audra opens her eyes and Emmeline's face blurs in front of her, starbursts floating across the whole room.  "You need to be able to stand."

"Why?"  Her voice cracks.  Before, when she thought all the quiet pressing in on her would make her go crazy, Audra talked to herself.  Stories, poems, song lyrics.  Snatches of letters from Fred that she could remember, bits of Dumbledore's advice, imaginary conversations with Clary.  But eventually she just went quiet.  "What's going on?"

"He did it.  Draco.  He came through."  Emmeline stuffed a bundle of clothes in Audra's arms and then took over when she moved to slow, undoing buttons and helping to undo the buttons on her shirt.  It was too cold down here, and Audra's own hands were stiff, too clumsy to do much at all, much less hold a wand.  "We're moving in tonight."

"Me too?"  Audra had known that she would be hard to replace but she did not expect just to be thrown right into it.  She thought there would be warnings, repercussions.

"If  you do it right, you walk free."  It explained the panic in Emmeline's eyes.  "He was confident that you were going to make the right choice this time."

Confident.  Just like he had that Emmeline was going to do as he bid, confident that he always knew how to break everyone else.  

"I can't even stand."  It was the first time Audra could remember being helpless.  "It hurts so bad, Emmeline."

She had tried to keep up her strength, before.  Audra had meant to pace the length of the room for at least an hour every day, but it just hurt so bad, shockwaves of pain shooting up her legs every time her feet hit the ground.  Eventually she just couldn't take it.

"You have to."  Emmeline steps away from her and Audra stumbles but does not fall.  "It's not hard."

"It is."  Audra was almost crying.  "I _can't._ "

"You have to."  Emmeline grabbed her by the back of her neck, pressing their foreheads together.  "You've got no other option.  Just one step at a time, okay?"  She shoves her away again and this time Audra really does fall.  "Just walk to me.  It'll get easier from there."

Audra walks, but it does not get easier.

 

 

 

Audra listens to the plan and tries to find a way out, but there wasn't one.

There were ways in, holes in Hogwarts defenses that she helped create.  A vanishing cabinet in a room that no one knew existed.  Peruvian instant darkness power and the hand of glory.  And a small task force, not an army but all they need, made of some of the most dangerous people she knew- Bellatrix, Draco, her, Emmeline, Dolohov, and Snape on the inside to meet them.

She had created an air tight assassination plan.  The only problem was that Audra had left no way to stop it.

It seems stupid, now, to think that after all the planning they went through, there was no emergency extraction plan to help Audra or anyone else.  She had no way to get information to them because that was not her job, and though she understood the need for people to operate only in the area where they are needed, they should have had a plan in place.  Audra was the person best equipped to know when a warning was needed, and yet she had no way for them to hear it.

No way but one.

"Hey, Emmeline?"  Did her voice sound strange?  It did.  She needs to calm down.  "I left my knives at my house.  I'll be back in time."

"What do you need knives for?"  Bellatrix lifted her head and dug her own knife into the arm of the chair she was sitting in.  Narcissa flinched, but didn't say anything.

"Because it's fun."  Audra took a step closer to her and Bellatrix stood, until they were nose to nose.  "And because I don't need to explain myself to you."

"That was before."  A flick of the wrist and she opens up another slash across Audra's cheek.  She feels the white hot rush of pain first and the blood second.  "Are you trying to run away?"

"I'm not that stupid."

"I never thought so,"  Bellatrix said softly, not trusting her but stepping away all the same, a cat playing with her food.  "But apparently you are."

 

 

 

She runs, even though it hurts.  Every step has her wanted to call out but the pain lessens a little with every second she keeps moving, like any type of motion is leeching away the after effects of all the spells Bellatrix had wrapped around her.  Still, the only reason that Audra was running ( _throwing herself through those oak doors and sprinting through the dining hall, hurtling up the steps and around corners_ ) is because they are all running out of time.

"Come on,"  She mutters, opening drawers and slamming them closed, then finally ripping them out of the desk and dumping the contents on the floor.  There are old quills and faded letters, hair ties and half empty jars of hair potion, but no sign of the old piece of parchment that she had once stuffed in here.  

"Audra."  Her mother.  Audra closes her eyes and breathes in deep, once, twice, trying to think of a story but coming up with nothing.  "You wouldn't happen to be looking for this?"

There, in her hand, was the scrap of paper that she and Fred had once used to talk back and forth with.  It was her one chance of managing to send a warning, but then it was fluttering out of her mother's hand and down into the fire.  Even Audra didn't have the ability to block a stunning spell and save it from burning at the same time.

"Mom."  Even counting the moment all those pictures fell from Wormtail's hand, there were very few moments in her life where she felt as helpless as she did then.  "What have you done?"

"I saved your life."

"He's going to _know._ " That's the thing, about being one of the only people able to keep the Dark Lord out of your mind- you were the only one.  Even if you could keep the memories secret, if there were other people in the room (like say, your mother) he would know anyways.  "You knew what I am, what I've done.  Why couldn't you just stay away?"

"Bellatrix told me."  They are standing closer to each other than they had in over a month.  "Asked me to keep an eye on what you were doing."

"You didn't have to listen."

Audra was crying.  She had been wrong before- this was the most painful thing she would ever experience, this was her breaking point.

"Yes,"  Her mother said, and Audra felt the twitch of her hand before she really saw it, "I did."

There are two blasts of light.  One, a stunning spell shot from her mother's wand.  A second, a disarming jinx that Audra threw the moment she realized what was happening.

"Audra."  She was rubbing at her wrist like it had burned her.  Maybe it had.  It was a spell brought on more by panic and instinct than anything else.  Audra wouldn't have been surprised if she had added some extra force to it without realizing.  "Please."

"Don't."  Audra leveled her wand at her face.  Her hand wasn't even shaking.  "Get in the chair mom."

"Audra."  Her mother's face had gone pale.  "What are you doing?"

"Don't make me ask again."  She was doing what it takes.  Always doing what it takes, going through the motions and jumping through hoops in order to protect everyone else, and it was ruined, on the last night she had to keep up this charade, all because she hadn't been able to make herself throw away a stupid piece of paper.  "Get in the chair."

She listens, and Audra makes the chair grow around her, caging her in.  She's strapped to it with her arms and back, a twisted rope of fabric holding her back at the waist.  "I won't tell anyone."  Her mom knew just as well as Audra did what retribution would be coming her way, not only for trusting her blood traitor of a daughter but also for letting her slip through her hands.  "You know I wouldn't do anything to hurt you."

Did she?  No.  Not anymore, not since she had buried her brother under a pile of dust and wood chips and walked the other way.  His death was a grenade that blew the remains of their family to pieces.  

"I can't take that chance."  There are tears slipping down her mother's face, but Audra's eyes are dry.  "I won't risk everyone I love just to save you.  We all make our choices."

She pockets her wand and turns to go, burning the sight into her eyelids, but her mother calls her back.

"I love you.  Do you hear me?  I've always been proud of you."  Her eyes were shining, but she did not look afraid.  "You're only doing what you have to.  What was right.  It's the one thing I was always too scared to do."

"I was only trying to protect you guys.  Pretending to agree was the only way."  Audra doesn't move any closer, too afraid that if she ran to her mother she would never be able to walk away.  "I was trying so hard."

"I know."

"I tried to tell you."  Audra was crying now, the words warped by the tears in her voice.  "Why didn't you ever listen?"

"It was easier not to."  Her mother stretched her hand out as far as it could go underneath the restraints and Audra took hold of it, her fingers shaking.  "We were all just doing our best."

"It wasn't enough."

"Hey."  She gripped Audra's hand tighter, almost enough that it hurt.  "This was because of my choices.  My mistakes.  Not yours.  Do you understand?"  Audra nodded, and her mother let go of her for the last time.  "Go."  It felt like she being forgiven and damned all in one word.  "Go save your friends."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	28. Astronomy Tower (Pt. 1)

There's a few moments of tumbling through the darkness where she thinks that she might never find her way out, but just when the panic threatens to set in, one of her hands made contact with something solid and she was yanked out into the room of requirement, falling at Draco's feet.

"Merlin."  She accepted the hand up and let's herself be dragged to her feet, wrapping an arm around Draco's shoulder, because despite how horrible this whole thing was, Audra could not help but be proud of him.  "Place has changed a bit since we last saw it, huh?"

The last time Audra had been standing here, the room had been half a classroom and half an armory, filled with everything the DA needed to train themselves and fight back against Umbridge.  Now, though, it was just a heaping mass of clutter, filled with everything that you could think of, anything that someone might need to hide.  You could walk in here for days and never find your way back to the door if you weren't careful.

"Changes all the time.  Now tell me,"  His voice is just a low hiss and he is careful to keep his expression neutral.  It seems that Audra isn't the only one who has gotten used to hiding things.  "What happened to the plan?"

The plan was that no one was actually going to get hurt.  That it would be her and Draco and maybe someone else, and Snape would meet them on the inside, and they would find their way to Dumbledore's office and end it right there, with no one the wiser and only one old man getting hurt.  But plans change, sometimes, and that one turned to dust the moment Audra got herself thrown in the dungeons. 

"We've got a new plan, now."  Audra heads to the door because she does not want to look at these people that she is leading into Hogwarts.  "Just try not to get yourself killed."

 

 

It only takes half a second for them to realize that they knew something was going to happen.

They get ambushed right outside the door, and even though Draco buys them time with instant darkness powder, they cannot outrun them forever.  The order had trained for this and all they had done was run through the plan, never thinking to make a second option in case things go wrong.  So they just push through.

Emmeline breaks the line first, and Audra knows without being told that the plan has changed, because she was running in the opposite direction of Dumbledore's office.  She tries to follow her ( _someone has to be there to stop things when they go to far, wasn't that the point of all of this, to show her true colors when they finally cross the line_?) but then she comes face to face with Ginny and running wasn't an option.

"Come on."  Ginny's just got her wand half raised, frozen in place, unsure whether or not Audra is on her side.  It's a second of hesitation that would only get them both killed, and Audra uses it to grab her by the hair.  She throws her into the wall and when Ginny crumples to the ground, Audra leans down to her and stuffs the wand back into her hand.  "Fight me, Ginny."  Ginny's a little dazed, blinking through the haze of smoke and dust that had surrounded them, and Audra is losing time before she has to leave her to the wolves.  "You've got to fight me."

She never does have to fight her, as it turns out, because Bill casts a shield charm between them so powerful that Audra is knocked off her feet and into the air.  It knocks the wind out of her, but she still manages to raise an arm and block the spells that Bill is sending her way.

It's more her speed, dueling with Bill.  The spells are flashing by faster than Audra can tell what they are, both from him and wayward misses from the other dueling pairs, and even though she can hear other people crying out in pain, she cannot risk turning away long enough to lose his attention.  

"Audra."  There is hand on her shoulder, and in that moment Bill gets a shot in.  It's not a nice spell, not one the other members of the Order would dream of using, and Audra could feel the skin on her shoulder open up, the blood soaking into her robes.  Emmeline stops shaking her and supports her weight instead.  "We've got to go."

"No,"  Audra says, because leaving now would mean not being able to protect any of them, and she cannot do that.  This moment must have been what Dumbledore had been waiting on all year.  "I'm not finished yet."

She turns back to Bill, but then a body flies by her -Fenrir- and knocks him off his feet.  Audra lets out half a scream as she watches.  Bill's wand is rolling away from his outstretched hand and lands at his sister's feet, who is also screaming, and the whole time that Audra is watching them ( _just as Fenrir begins to bite, to rip and tear and shred the skin like he's a wolf in human clothing_ ), Bill is watching her, blank eyes staring in her direction.

Audra wants to help him.  But she has a job to do, and Dumbledore, no matter how much he preaches about saving the little guy, is more important than anything of them.  Out of everyone, he is the one who must walk away from this fight.

"Okay."  Audra stumbles a bit and has to grab onto Emmeline for support, but they are already running, reaching out and snagging Draco by the collar to pull him along.  "Let's get this over with."

 

 

 

Dumbledore is alone.

He looks sick.  Audra's eyes seek out his hand on instinct, but it does not look any worse than it had the last time she came to visit him, so it must be something different.  He's hurt, and about to face five death eaters out for his blood.

"Do it, Draco."  Bellatrix is jeering. Draco looks like he might be sick.  Audra is just creeping to the front of the group, silently, until she is standing side by side with Snape.  "Quickly!"

"I'll do it,"  Fenrir snarled, and Audra almost threw her cover to the wind right then and there, because that was explicitly what Dumbledore dreaded happening the most, but Dolohov beat her to it- one flash of light and Fenrir was sent stumbling back.  Audra keeps her wand half raised out in front of her, but with one almost imperceptible shake of the head from Dumbledore, she lowers it again.  

"Draco."  Audra fought her way to reach him until they are shoulder to shoulder, and she tries to tell him, without saying anything at all, to stand down.  "Draco, do it or stand aside so one of us,"

She does not get to finish her sentence.  The slam of the doors cut her off and Audra's knees almost buckle with relief, because there, standing in the doorway and scanning the scene in front of him was Snape, Snape who knew the plan and knew how best to get them all out of this with no one getting hurt.  Snape, who could be the one in control, the one to save Dumbledore, the one to take this weight of her shoulders once and for all just like he promised he would.

But Severus doesn't always intend to keep his promises.

"Severus,"  Dumbledore whispers, the word drawn out and pleading, like this was Dumbledore's last hope in the world and was watching it wither and die right in front of him.  The whole thing was wrong, it wasn't right, because it should not be happening like this, _this was not the plan_ , and yet Audra still did not move, because didn't Snape know best?

She just watched.  Watched as Severus took those few steps forward to stand at the front of the group, pushing Malfoy out of the way.  Audra catches him and just stares, until the moment where she catches sight of Snape's face, at the disgust burned into every single line, and it's only then that she realizes that he is not the good guy he is pretending to be.

"Severus,"  Dumbledore said, and even though she had not yet accepted it, somewhere in Audra's mind she knows she is witnessing the last moments of the great Albus Dumbledore.  "Please."

Snape raises his wand, and Audra tries to move forward without even bothering to think of her wand, intending to knock Dumbledore to the ground or take the brunt of the spell herself, if she has to, but Emmeline and Draco grab her by the arm, forcing her to the ground, and the three of them watch in a shared silent sense of disbelief as Dumbledore is thrown over the bannister and falls, limp and unfeeling, down to ground, unable to save himself, or her, or anyone else ever again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dialogue at the end taken from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince


	29. Astronomy Tower (pt 2)

Someone is screaming.

Audra hears the sound like it is coming from far away, blocked by the roaring in her ears, and it takes her a moment to realize that the sound ( _not even a scream, really, just a sort of wailing_ ) is being ripped from her own mouth. She can't think of why she is screaming, only that Dumbledore cannot be dead, but when she leans over the edge of the Astronomy tower to check, he is still there, crumpled up at the bottom, which is how she knows that he's gone. Dumbledore would never make them stand alone when he could stop it.

"Audra. Audra." Emmeline is shaking her, yanking on her robes and pulling her back, and Audra cannot believe that she was the same girl who was so weak she could barely stand only twelve hours before, because now she has enough strength to tear the whole castle down. "Audra, now is not the time."

 _It wasn't supposed to be like this,_  she thinks, and her mind is still not working, can't figure it out, the plea and then that flash of green and then his body flying into the air, all those hours spent to stop the spread of the infection gone in just one second, and they were close, _so close_ , to being able to save him, but it didn't matter, everything they had done and risked and sacrificed reduced to nothing, all because Dumbledore believed in second chances, because he was trusting, because he was a fool.

Emmeline is still shaking her, still talking to her, still trying to pull her back down to the fight. But Audra was done with fighting.

"No." Her mind is clearer than it had been in months, and Audra whips around, shoving Emmeline back so hard that she stumbles. "Walk away."

"Audra," She was still trying to get her to come with her. Emmeline was listening but wasn't understanding, just like Vance never understood what she had been trying to show him. "Audra, please come with me."

"Walk away." Audra points her wand at her and Emmeline just stares. She doesn't make a move to fight her. They had proved before that Audra would always win. "Leave, and don't come near me, or I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

"Audra-,"

She reaches out and Audra sends a stinging jinx at her outstretched hand. Emmeline yanks back, barely able to keep hold of her wand. "I'm not one of you. But you knew that. I was just pretending." Audra brushes past her, back towards the screams and the flashing light and more of her friends that might be dead, and Emmeline doesn't try and follow. "But I'm done."  
  
  
  
  
  


When Audra makes it to the corridor where all the noise was coming from, she splits the fight in half.

No one moves to curse her, because no one knows what side she is on, so for a moment, Audra just stands there, watching. The Order was hopelessly outmatched. Not because they were bad at fighting, but because they insisted on being honorable. They, just like the DA, hadn't been taught to fight, only how to defend, and no matter what Hermione thinks, there's a difference. To really be able to win you had to be willing to hurt.

And suddenly, Audra had no problem with that.

She starts with Greyback, just a sweep of the arm sending him flying through the air, away from a shocked Hermione and Ginny. He had backed them into the corner, ready to do to them what he had done to Bill and so many countless others, and now he was just curled up on the floor, whimpering, making a sound like an injured dog, and when he sees her coming, he just crawls away.

Audra doesn't go after him, even though every inch of her was screaming at her to end it, but she doesn't, because she is playing by Dumbledore's rules again. That means letting them live. It means holding back. But it didn't really matter, because there are so many other people to fight against.

She doesn't choose an opponent, more like she chooses which people she wants to hurt and makes sure they can feel how angry she is. People who trusted her only a moment before now turn to her and run, because no matter what the Dark Lord would say later, they know that to fight against her would be a losing battle.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Harry whip around the corner and watches McGonagall fall underneath a death eater's wand, but then the room shifts and she loses sight of her, replaced by Ron instead.

He's fighting Dolohov. Neither of them have any subtlety, no craft. They fight with brute force, each just wanting to be the first to knock the other to the ground, like they are throwing punches instead of spells. Ron has his face screwed up with the pain and the effort, and in that moment he looks so much like Fred that she can't breathe, and because he is like Fred he will not win.

He is not willing to hurt.

Audra will do it for him, to protect him, just like she had done so many other things. But this time, she will not have to feel guilty about it.

She screams even though she does not have to, draws the spell up from the back of her mind, and even though she normally hesitates to use it, this time she does not hold back. Dolohov crumples under the weight and inks to his knees, and Ron does not understand at first, not until he sees the three deep cuts through his back, the robes slashed open to show the way the blood is pouring out over his skin.

Over Dolohov's head, she meets Ron's eyes. She expects him to be horrified but he only nods, a silent thank you, and Audra realizes that she is not the only one willing to be a monster to protect the ones she loves.  
  
  
  
  
  


When she turns to run, people are calling her name, but she doesn't slow down.

The pain is still there but she does not pay attention, even when her legs give out and she goes down to the ground, tumbling down over the staircase that leads down to the front lawn. This time, there is nothing to do but pick herself up and keep running, chasing after those figures melting into the darkness.

"Hey!" Audra can't run anymore. Her leg is dragging in the dirt behind her and she cannot pick it up for one more step. "It's not over yet."

"Oh, sweetie." Her aunt's face is a mirror. It's her, thirty years in the future, when her face is warped by hate and her mind is haunted by the ruin of the things she had done. It's her destiny, to become a monster, to confuse might with right. It was in her blood. "It was over for you a long time ago."

Audra had never tested her strength against her aunt's, mostly because she never wanted to know the answer but also because she already had an idea of the outcome. Her spells were too strong, too deadly, too fast. Audra was bowing under the weight of them, already exhausted, and knew that any moment she was going to slip up. Behind them, twenty feet away, she can hear Harry shouting at Snape but cannot go to his aid because she had been a fool, running up to the only person she didn't know if she could beat and picking a fight.

When it comes, the spell hits her in the chest, knocks her down to the ground again, and this time, Audra didn't stand back up. Sometimes, everyone reaches a point where they can no longer stand up.

"You always did like to play with your food," Bellatrix says, panting out the words, and Audra can see the spell forming on her lips. She closes her eyes, because she does not want to see the end coming.

But the spell never comes.

Instead, there is a hand on Bellatrix's arm, almost gentle. Snape's, forcing her wand back to point at the ground. "No," And his beady black eyes find her in the darkness. "The Dark Lord is not done with her yet."

Bellatrix leaves, and Audra crawls to him, trying to be close enough to lash out.

"He trusted you. _I_  trusted you." She spits out blood at his shoes. "And here you were still a coward, just like before."

"Do not," He says, and she sees the anger flash in his eyes. Audra flinches back but he is only going for the wand in her hand, which he smashes underneath the heel of his boot. It splinters in her hand and Audra's cry of pain echoes through the treetops. "Call me a coward."

"But you are." She wanted to die, a bit. Just so the fight was over. Just so she could stop being in pain, stop being so tired. "What else do you call a man who kills everyone who ever loved him?"

"I'm not killing you."

Audra spits out a laugh and chokes on the sound, ready to tell him how untrue that was, but he was already gone, a dark shape disappearing down over the hill.  
  
  


 

 

She lies in the damp grass for a long time.

The fight was over. There was nothing to do but mourn, nothing but to crawl to the castle and figure out which of her friends were dead. It was just so much easier, to lie here and stare at the stars.

Audra hears the footsteps, but doesn't turn her head to find who they belong to. It doesn't matter. Without a wand, there was no way for her to fight back.

"You're a mess." Emmeline is standing over her. "Pathetic, really."

"Do it." Audra spits out the words. "Get it over with."

"Merlin, Audra. I'm not going to kill you." She settles down onto the ground beside her. "So this is it, huh? The end of the best pair of assassins that the world has ever seen?"

"Murderers."

"What?"

"We were murderers." It hurt for her to get the words past her lips. "Not soldiers. Not warriors. Not any other name you can think of to make it better. We were the bad guys."

Emmeline fumbles for her hand in the darkness and grips it tight. "I wasn't the one pretending to be good."


	30. The After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dialogue you recognize taken directly from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Remus is the one who comes to find her.

Audra wonders how long it had taken them before they noticed her absence.  If they thought they had to look, or if everyone had said that she was a traitor, too, just like Snape and they shouldn't even bother to look, and Remus had gotten to his feet with a weary sigh, saying that he would go check the grounds, just in case.

She wondered if he expected to find her.  Or if he did, if he thought she would even be alive.

"Audra."  He falls to his knees beside her, taking in the sight of the splintered bits of her wand still digging into her palm and the blood that has smeared across her face, trickling down past her mouth.  It's a sorry sight.  "Are you hurt?"

"I tried."  She chokes out a sound that was half way between a groan and a sob, and a blood bubble bursts at the corner of her mouth.  "I tried to stop him.  I thought..." Another cough, another sob.  "I thought that we were the good guys."

"We all did."  He grabs her under the arms and drags her to her feet, and she almost drags them both back to the ground when she can't hold her wait.  It's only then that she let's herself look at the Astronomy Tower, at the hundreds of wands illuminating the sky in Dumbledore's honor and even though it wasn't possible from this distance, she imagines that she can see the figure of the Professor spread out on the ground.  "Let's get you to the hospital wing, alright?  It's all over."

"No."  She does not know what she's saying no to.  No, she doesn't want someone to heal her?  No, it's not over?  "Not yet."  Audra's fingers scrabble at his arm to try and push him away, but they had been crushed under Snape's boot and she cannot make him let go.  "I don't want to see him."

There's a sigh, deep and heavy and she can feel it vibrate in his chest. 

He doesn't promise her that she will not have to look.  There's no longer any time for comforts like that.  
  


 

 

 

The hospital wing is full to bursting.  Audra had spent a lot of time in here before, having been friends with Fred and George for most of her Hogwarts days, but she had never seen it like this, so quiet that you could hear every breath and creak of the chair, everyone not able to look each other in the eye because they are afraid of what they might find there.

Everyone stares at her when they walk through the door.  Audra offers up a weak smile and collapses in the nearest empty chair, curls in on herself and spits blood into the floor.  There are thin hands running over her back almost immediately, and when Audra finally finds the strength to lift her hand, she finds McGonagall standing beside her.

"Audra."  When McGonagall speaks, her voice breaks.  "We thought..." _Thought that you were gone,_ Audra heard, and does not want to ask what it means, if they thought she was turned traitor or dead.  "What happened to you?"

"I'm sorry."  She is not talking to her.  She is looking past her, at Harry and Ron and Hermione, all standing shoulder to shoulder.  Ron had nudged himself in front of both of them, like he had jumped into the defensive as soon as the door opened.  "I didn't know.  This whole time, I thought I was saving him."  She wanted someone to know.  Someone to look at her and understand, to tell her that it was okay that Snape had wrapped her up in the lie, too.  "This wasn't the plan."

But maybe it was.  Did they even have a plan?  Audra always assumed that they did, that it was all leading to _something_ that would make this all worth while, but maybe she was wrong.  Maybe Dumbledore was just making it up as he went along and she had been stupid enough to believe in him.

"I saw you go after them."  There was no blame in Harry's voice, but there was no forgiveness, either.  "Snape left me to go to you.  What happened?"

"He was saving me."  She opened her hand and let the broken splinters of her wand fall to the floor.  Her palm was smeared red where the splinters had cut into her.  "I went after Bellatrix.  Turns out I was outmatched.  But I just don't-," She stops and scrubs her hands through her hair, even though it makes her broken fingers scream.  "Dumbledore trusted him."

"Yeah, well."  Harry snorted.  "He was wrong."

"I still don't know how it happened."  McGonagall didn't lift her hand from Audra's shoulder, and it was only that slight amount of pressure that kept Audra from falling apart.  "It's all so confusing... Dumbledore had told us that he would be leaving the school for a few hours and that we were to patrol the corridors just in case....  Remus, Bill and Nymphadora were to join us.. and so we patrolled.  All seemed quiet.  Every secret passageway out of the school was covered.  We knew nobody could fly in.  There were still powerful enchantments on every entrance into the castle.  I still don't know the Death Eaters can possibly have entered..."

"I do."  Everyone swiveled to face her at the same time, and across from her, Harry lifted up his chin to her like it was some sort of challenge.  Like he was waiting to see if she would really tell the truth, but she did, every last dirty piece of it.  "I was just trying to protect Draco.  He's only a kid, and if he had failed... you don't know."  She had to swallow hard to break up the lump that had grown in her throat.  "He gets so angry."

"So you just let him in?"  Ron's voice was angry, wrecked and torn open, and his face was pale.  He was looking at her like he'd never known her before.  "Harry, we did like you told us; we checked the Maurader's Map and couldn't see Malfoy on it, so we thought he must be in the Room of Reqirement, so me, Ginny, and Neville, went to keep watch on it...," He turned to her again.  "Why didn't you warn anyone?"

"I couldn't.  I didn't have a way.  And Dumbledore knew something like this was going to happen.  We had a plan.  Me and Snape were supposed to help, only...." Only Dumbledore had stood there, wandless and defenseless, and pleaded for his life and she hadn't been able to do anything about it.  "I didn't know it was going to be tonight, anyways."

 _I've been in a dungeon for the past few weeks,_ She was about to say, but no one challenged her any further.  They all seemed content to place all the blame on Snape and none of it on her.   
Audra listened to the rest of them talk, going through their own accounts of the night.  She didn't need to hear it.  She knew how they all got in.

"He shouted 'it's over,'" said Harry.  "He'd done what he meant to do."

"It just doesn't make sense."  Audra needed them to know.  To understand how she could have stood with Snape this whole terrible night and not known something horrible was about to happen.  "We worked all year to save him.  His hand- I spent hours making potions, there were times I worked through the night.  It was complicated, terrible stuff- why would Snape work that hard just to let him die?"

No one had an answer.  
  


 

 

 

Audra stays longer than anyone else.

Harry and the teachers left the fastest, going to Dumbledore's office to discuss what to do about the school, and then Tonks and Remus took off, possibly to discuss her declaration of love that she had shouted to the room only moments before.  All that was left was Audra, Hermione, Fleur, and the Weasley's.

Not that she hadn't tried to leave.  She meant to sneak away as soon as the initial discussion was over, but she was just so tired, and everything hurt so bad, and she really couldn't go anywhere now that she doesn't have a wand, anyways.  Then when she finally did try to haul herself to her feet, Madam Pomfrey had come running and forced her back into a chair.

"Hey."  There's a shuffling of feet, and when Audra tears her face away from the window.  Ron is standing in front of her, hands shoved deep in his pockets.  He still hadn't washed the dirt from his face.  "You good?" He was the first one to think to ask her that. 

 "Yeah, I'm fine."  Audra tries for a smile, but considering all the blood that was staining her teeth, it probably didn't help matters.  "How's Bill?"

"He's..." They both look over to the curtained off bed, where both Mrs. Weasley and Fleur are flanking each side of the bed, taking turns to dab potions on the cuts all over his face.  

"Yeah."  Audra didn't want to make him say it.  "I know."

"You could come sit with us."  Ron jerks his head over to the circle of chairs.  Ginny heard and offered up a smile, turning to drag an open seat in between her and Hermione.  "We've got plenty of room."

"No." She could not bear the thought of moving to take her place with all of them again.  Just a year ago, she never even would have had to question her right to sit there, but she had done so many things.  "I need to get going."

"Where?"

It was a fair question.  A good question, one she had no real answer to.  All Audra knew is that she had to get away.  Once you turn your back on the Dark Lord, no where is safe.  She would have to get far away, and fast.

"I don't know."  She tries to pull herself to her feet and Ron catches her when she stumbles.  He drops her back into the chair.  "Somewhere that the death eaters can't find me."

"Don't be ridiculous.  You're going to stay with us."  He turns to his mother for help, and Audra feels terrible that she was dragging her away from Bill for just one moment.  "Right, mum?"

"What, dear?"  It's amazing how quick she turns to him, even with her eldest son's blood painting her hands up to the wrists.  "Who needs to go?"

"Audra thinks she needs to run away.  But she's staying with us, isn't she?"  Ron is looking from her mother to Audra and back again, even throwing a few anxious glances at Hermione.  These people had always had the answers for him before, and now there are no good ones.  "Tell her she can't just go."

"I need to."  Audra is almost crying, because why doesn't anyone understand?  Why can't they just let her go?  "Molly, he'll be after me."

Molly crosses the room and takes Audra's face in her hands.  Audra bows forward so her head is pressed against her stomach, caught in her embrace, like Molly could protect her from the war that had just erupted underneath her feet.  "Then we'll protect you.  I said that before, remember?"  She tilts Audra's chin up and makes her look at her.  "You've always got a home with us."

"I'm not the girl you said that to.  Things have changed."  Audra is crying now, and she wishes that everyone would look away from her.  "I've done so many terrible things."

"It doesn't matter."

"I've hurt people."  She needed her to understand.  "I've killed people."

"Because you had to.  I said before, it wasn't fair for Dumbledore to ask of you what he did.  You were just doing your best."  Molly's grip didn't loosen, and even as tears slipped down both their cheeks, neither of them looked away.  "Whatever you did, whoever you think you turned out to be, you only did what you needed to survive.  There's no shame in that."

"You don't know."  Her voice was only a whisper.  "You've got no idea."

"Yes," Molly said, and her voice was softer now, low enough that only Audra could hear it.  "I do."  It wasn't a lie.  It was clear from her face, and as Audra lifted her head to look around the room, she realized that everyone in this room must at least have some idea of the thing she had become.  "And you've still got a home with me."

**Dialogue you recognize taken directly from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.**

 


	31. The Funeral

"You better get going."

Audra jumps at Bill's voice.  Without anywhere else to go, she had spent the night in the Hospital Wing.  She had wanted to get a room in Hogsmeade, but Rosmerta was still getting over being confunded and she didn't think it was right to go knocking on the door of the Hog's Head when Aberforth's brother had just been killed.  So she stayed.

"I'm not going."  She had meant to.  Audra had gotten dressed for it, even, borrowing a dress from one of the Slytherin fifth years that used to try and hang out with her and Emmeline all the time.  Before, that girl had worshipped the ground she walked on.  Now, she looked at her like she was something that had gotten stuck on the bottom of her shoe.  "I wanted to, but.." She shook her head and winces at the pain that starts shooting down her spine.  "Can't."

She had been able to do a lot of things over these past months, but being able to watch a man she should have been able to protect get laid to rest was not one of them.  Audra never wanted to be a coward, but it seems that when it comes to the more important things, that's all she is.

"I get it."  Bill settles back down onto the cushions with a wince.  Audra brings over the bottle of potion that Madam Pomfrey had left and pours him a glass, but he just waves it away.  "I don't want that."

"It'll help with the pain."

"Doesn't hurt that bad."

"You're a liar."  She sets the glass down and throws herself into one of the chairs by his bedside.  Audra thinks it is the one that Mrs. Weasley set vigil in the whole night before.  "But I guess it's your choice."

"Yes."  He watches her for a moment and then let's his eyes close.   He had done nothing but sleep since they first brought him up here.  Audra couldn't tell if he was really that tired or if the medicine keeps dragging him back under.  "I suppose it is."

 

 

  
  


She goes to the Astronomy Tower instead.

It had been Hermione's idea, that she and Harry go back there at least once, to look where it happened straight in the face.  Prove to themselves that they were not afraid, make it seem a little less evil.  Audra's not sure that she meant so soon, but she never did do things at the pace of normal people.

 _His wand had been laying right here after Draco threw it to the floor,_ She thinks, tracing through the night with her mind.  _Draco came first, and Bellatrix second, and I was standing right here beside Emmeline when Snape burst through those doors.  Remember, you thought he was here to make everything better?_

She can see it, like it was happening right in front of her all over again.  The way that Dumbledore had slumped against the wall and slid a few inches downwards because his legs could not hold him up anymore.  How pale Draco's face had been in the moonlight, the way that Fenrir's breath was hot on the back of Audra's neck.  How terrified Emmeline had been even though she tried to hide it.  And then the way that Snape had blasted the doors open, illuminated there by the dying light of his own spells, dark eyes flashing at the scene in front of him.

 _Severus, please,_ he had said, and Audra can hear those words ringing in her head, does not think that she can get rid of them for as long as she lives, but then there's another voice, much louder and a lot more real.

"Hey."  It makes her whirl around, reaching automatically for a wand that would not be there.  Fred raises both his hands in the air, a sign of surrender, and smiles at her.  "Hermione told me that I might find you here."

Audra turns away from him and goes back to the balcony instead, looking down at the spot where Dumbledore had fallen.  "How was the funeral?"

"Weird.  But they always are."  Fred takes his place beside her, taking the hint from her and staring out at the Forbidden Forest instead of looking at her.  "You didn't go?"

"No." It was easier to admit that to him instead of Bill.  She does not think that there would be many people that she would be able to explain that to, but Fred never asks for a reason.  "That's not how I wanted to remember him." 

"And how are you going to remember him?"  _As an old man, wandless, begging for his life from a man that he had thought was his friend._ "Ron told me that you were going to run away."

Audra drew in a sharp breath.  "I have to go somewhere.  You don't get to just walk away from You-Know-Who."

Fred's mouth twitches up into a smile.  "I call him by his name now."

"Do you?"

"Yeah.  Seemed silly not to, when me and George started making all those jokes about him."  

"I'm sorry, by the way."  She is watching him out of the corner of her eye.  "For what I did to the shop."

If she had thought she was going to get a reaction, Audra was wrong.   He only nodded, an acknowledgement of her apology, and then gave a small, pained smile, like he had known it all along.  "We thought that it was you."

"Are you mad at me?"

Her voice came out too small, and he waited too long before replying.  "No."

"I don't believe you."

"You don't have to.  I'm deciding it, right now."  He pulls something out of his pocket, and there, dangling between his fingers, is the locket that she had thought had been lost in the middle of the woods.  "I love you."

"Fred."  There were so many reasons not to do this.  "Don't."

"Why?"  He tried to fasten it around her neck but she didn't let him, not yet.  "Why shouldn't we do this?"

"You don't know me anymore."

"I do."

"You don't.  What I did to Draco in the woods?"  _Does he even know what I did to Draco?   Did George even tell him?  We're so wrapped up in trying to protect each other that it's hard to tell where the lies stop and the truth starts._ "That's just the beginning."

"I don't care."

"I've done so many terrible things.  I've hurt people.  I've tortured people."  She didn't need to tell him, not really.  They could live the rest of their lives and Fred would never find a clue, because Audra was just that good of a liar and everyone loved them both too much to ever tell him.  "I've walked away from people as they bled out at my feet, I've killed children, I've burned things down just because it was fun.  Because I was angry, and wanted to make other people hurt, and because I was good at it.   That's what I've turned into."

"No." He pulls her into him, and Audra buries her face into the dip of his neck, digs her too long nails into the leather of his jacket and bites down on her lip hard enough to make it bleed.  "That's who you had to be."

"I don't really know the difference anymore."  It was a hard confession to make, and the most glaring truth she had ever told about herself.  She had been lost for a while, long before the Dark Lord started sending her out to kill people just because they were in his way.  She might have been lost the night she killed Vance, or the night she took the Mark, or maybe from the very night Cedric got killed in that graveyard and she looked around the common room and knew it was time for everyone to pick sides.  

"It doesn't matter."  He's holding her so tight it hurts, like she might slip away from him again if he gives her half a chance.  "You don't have to tell me what you've done.  It doesn't make a difference.  I love you, Audra.  I'm never going to stop loving you."

"You should."

"Don't you love me?"

"Merlin," She said, just a breath, and that's the moment where she breaks, where she can no longer hold herself back from loving him.  Audra goes up on tiptoes to kiss him, wondering if he can taste the blood that still fills her mouth, and they don't pull away from a long time.  "Of course I love you."

"Then it's fine."  It's not fine.  A man died in the place where they are standing, a man she had spent the whole year trying to protect, all because he believed a man when he said that he still loved someone.  It's not fine, because she had torn herself open to keep up a lie and does not know if she can patch herself together.  It's not fine, because she had done what she needed to do to survive, but at some point even that stops being a good enough excuse.  "We'll figure it out together."

"Fred," She said, her heart breaking, dyeing over his naivety.  "I don't even have a wand."

"Then we'll get you one.  Don't worry."  He steps back, taking her with him, away from the ledge.  She hadn't realize how close she had been to falling before he came to find her.  "Whatever it is, we'll figure it out."

 

 

  
  


"I sort of hate you, you know.  You weren't supposed to die."  It's early morning, sunrise, the light reflecting of the lake so brightly that she has to squint, and Audra is sitting cross legged in front of the marble tomb that Dumbledore's body is sealed up in.  "You weren't supposed to leave us alone."

 _Leave me alone,_ she wants to say, but it seems selfish to admit even to a tomb, and anyways, he had always cared more about Harry than about her. Though she imagines at least a part of him must have felt guilty at the things he had asked her to go through.

"I tried.  I really, really thought we were all going to make it through.  But so many things happened."   It's the things that might have happened that are driving her crazy. Like, if she had never gone to the twin's shop that night, Wormtail would never had had those pictures and none of this would have happened.  Or if her mother hadn't gone looking for that scrap of parchment, Audra would have been able to get a warning to the twins and the Order could have stopped them all at the Room of Requirement.  Or if Dumbledore had picked his friends just a little better.  "I'm sorry that I couldn't save you."

"I just thought he would.  You must have, too.  Or maybe you didn't.  I saw your face when Snape came up there.  You must have known that he was going to turn on you in the end."  She's been making daisies sprout from the dust this whole time, and hadn't even noticed it.  Audra doesn't think that Dumbledore would have minded.  "I didn't think to step in because I trusted him to.  I'm trying to figure out whose fault that is."

"I want it to be yours, you know?  I want all of this to be your fault.  But you're dead."  The words are like ground glass in her throat.  "And now we have to figure this all out on our own."

"It's all going to start for real now, isn't it?  The war."  She does not know why she keeps coming to talk to tombstones.  Audra has long since gotten past the point where she thinks there is anyone listening, and yet.  "I'm going to keep fighting.  But I hope it's fast.  I don't know how much more of this I have in me."

"It's just really tiring, you know, to keep telling yourself that you're the good guy when you know that isn't true."  _Is that why you did it?  Why you let him kill you and didn't ask for my help?  Had you given all that you could take, too?_ "But I'm going to keep fighting.  And not for the greater good, but just for the sake of being good, for once.  I think in order to survive a fight, you have to be able to walk away thinking you deserve it.  I don't think that yet."

She stands up, squints over at the lake, up into the sun, and tries not to think of what is lying underneath all this marble.

"But I will."  Audra lets her fingers trail against the cool stone for a moment and then yanks them back.  "Someday, I will."


	32. Platform 9 3/4

Her time as a spy was ending, but she still had jobs to do.

 Today, that job was making sure that Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys got off the train and back into the muggle world without being attacked, or kidnapped, or murdered in the middle of a crowd of Hogwart's students.

 For her first day back, it's not so bad.

"These kids are so small." It wasn't a helpful comment, but at least George was talking to her again. There had been a beat of awkwardness when she first came back to the hospital wing and they met each other's eyes over Bill's hospital bed, but after a long game of exploding snap and an even longer conversation about the things they had done after everyone else had went to sleep, they're friends again. Not the same, exactly, but not all that different, either. "Were we that small when we were younger?"

 "No." Fred was there, too. He had been game to come along when George had asked, anxious to keep the peace between the two of them. "Definitely not. What do you think, Audra?" It takes him a moment to realize that she is no longer standing beside them. "Audra?"

 She doesn't answer, just keeps walking towards the train, peering around at the swarm of kids and parents pushing past her to get to the platform. There, through the smoke, barely visible in the gaps between the train compartments, had been her father.

 _Get lost in a crowded place._ He had told her that. It had been the first thing he ever taught her, she remembers, before even teaching her to tie her shoes or how to spell her name. Her mother had thought that he was reading her a bed time story, and Audra supposes he was, of sorts. _When people hide, they always try for the out of the way places, where no one knows exists. The only problem is, once they get found, there's no where for them to run. But when you're in a crowd- all you have to do is walk the other way and you've disappeared again._

That's what he's doing now.  Fred and George run to stand behind her, back to back with wands out.  They are drawing stares but Audra does not tell them to calm down, just keeps staring through the smoke, peering across the tracks at the hazy image of her father's face.

 _I'm always going to protect you._ He had said that, too, when they were walking through the street hand in hand at twilight.  She had been looking at the watery reflection of the sunset in a store window when someone charged at them, waving a shard of glass in her direction.  He had been dead before he even made it within five feet of her.  She found out later that they had been bunk mates during her father's Hogwarts days.  _No matter what, no matter the cost or who against, even if you've done a terrible thing, I'll be here to protect you._

She supposes that's what he's here to do now.

"Audra."  Fred's breaks between them, his fingers warm on the inside of her arm.  She tries to push past him but he doesn't let her- he had promised not to let her go and it seems like he meant it.  "What is it?"

Her brother was dead.  Clary was missing, and if she ever came face to face with Emmeline again, it was likely that one of them would have to kill the other.  No one from the Order had been able to tell her what happened to her mother, and George looked like someone she didn't recognize, like he was still himself but a poor imitation of it.  A boy pretending to be the person he thought he used to be and doing a bad job.  Besides Fred, her father was the only one she had left.

 _Family matters._ He had taught her this on one of the few times she had ever found herself afraid of him.  They were throwing a dinner party, and Audra had misbehaved- her tantrums were famous back then, screams that smashed open glasses and made sparkling champagne spread over table cloths, where she would cry and beat her fists on the floor until her skin was black with bruises- and this time, he had grabbed her by the arms and dragged her down into the basement where no one could hear her cry.  His face had only been inches from hers, and he was gripping her so tight that he ripped the sleeves of her dress.  _Before anything else, before anything you might want or need or dream for, we take care of this family.  It doesn't matter who we push out of the way as long as we're still standing.  Do you understand, Audra?_ He had shaken her, then, so hard her teeth clacked together.  She had cracked one of her molars and had to spend the next of the afternoon at St. Mungo's waiting for an open healer to see her, but not before she sat through dinner and chewed her way through seven courses without so much as one tear.  Some skills you learn early.  _This family survives because we do what it takes.  It's time you start to do your part._

But family is decided by more things than blood.  It had taken her a while, but Audra knows that now.  

She had more promises to keep, to people more important to her than her father.  Jobs to finish, people to protect.  Her father never did manage to understand what it's like to make hard choices for something other than your own survival.

Audra still intends to make it through this war, but she's not going to do it by hiding until it's over.  And she's not going to do it alone.

"No." She pauses for a moment to take in the sight of him, and her father stretches out his hand to her.  She can just barely make him out now, and knows that she has only moments before she loses sight of him forever.  "I just thought I saw someone."  It was a conscious gesture to reach back and grab Fred's hand instead of walking towards her father, back into the protective circle of the twins instead of leaping across the tracks towards whatever plan her dad had waiting for her.  "Turned out to be nothing."

 _We all make choices, dad._ Fred presses a kiss down to her head, an arm wound around her shoulder in a way that was borderline possessive.  She doesn't fight him even though she could, just lets him lead her over to where his parents were waiting.  _I just think it's time I start making the right ones._


	33. Author's Note

I never really know what to say at the end of these, but I think it would be wrong of me to end this story without thanking those readers (on this site and others) that have stuck with me through both The Potion Princess and this story. I appreciate all your comments, and even if I happen to not have time to respond, I read and love each and every one of them. To those of you who comment consistently, I want to give an extra big thank you. You all leave the best comments, full of praise and encouragement and feedback that makes me feel that writing fanfiction isn't just a big waste of my time. (Even though it sort of is a waste of my time, but it's okay. I'm too invested to quit now.)

If you look at these next few installments, you'll be able to find links to my pinterest account where you can find aesthetics for all my OC's (ever wonder what my version of Audra looks like? Now's your chance to find out) and a summary of all my other stories. If you liked this story, I hope you check out some of my other writings. In addition to Harry Potter, I have fics for Marvel and Criminal Minds as well.

Tentative release date for part 3 of the Audra Stanton series is October 31.

And, as always, come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic

Until next time Lovelies.


	34. Pinterest

Want to see what I think the characters look like?  Follow the links below to check out my aesthetic boards on pinterest for each of my OC's.

 

https://www.pinterest.com/always_scritpur/the-potion-princess/


	35. Chapter 35

**Audra and friends will return in "These Hallowed Halls," tentative release date scheduled for October 31.**

 

**Please subscribe to the Audra Stanton series to be notified when it's posted.**


	36. Other Stories

 

**The Potion Princess**

Things that Audra cares about: Fred. George. Her potions. Her dog. Her two other best friends, Clary and Emmeline, who are completely in love with each other but won't admit it. Her older brother, Vance. And anything Fred cares about.

Things Audra doesn't care about: Being a pureblood. That she's friends with Gryffindors despite being in Slytherin. Herbology. Draco Malfoy. The fact that her parents were death eaters, and if things had turned out differently, she would have followed in their footsteps.

Except that things are changing. Now, with the whispers about the dark mark returning and the incident at the quidditch world cup, it'd be crazy not to consider what's going to happen when the Dark Lord returns. Audra knows that she'll be expected to fall into line, but how could she, when she's friends with Harry Potter and mudbloods and purebloods alike, and she's half in love with one of the biggest blood traitors in existence? But how could she hope to avoid her duties, when turning her back on the Dark Arts ensure torture for her parents, if not death?

 

**All the Ghosts Are Screaming (multi-chapter fic)**

Harry had been told he had a bit of a saving people thing.

He hadn't paid much attention to it before, because he didn't see it as a bad thing. So what if he sometimes put himself in danger to save other people? So what if he would take a bullet for almost all of his friends?

It wasn't something he thought he had to fix, until the day he's sitting beside Ginny in court watching Malfoy get put on trial, hearing the Wizengamot say that he had to stay on house arrest with an acceptable citizen, and no one speaks up, which meant that Malfoy was going to Azkaban.

Which is around the time that Harry stands up without really deciding to and offers up a room at Grimmauld Place.

So yeah. Maybe he does have a bit of a saving people thing.

 

 

**To All Those Brave and Lovely (multi chapter fic, part 1 of All the Lovely Ones Have Scars series)**

Nora Reynolds didn't ask anyone to save her.

And yet, Tony Stark seems to be intent on doing so anyways, becoming her legal guardian after her father dies in the middle of a terrorist attack (a death caused by one of Spiderman's mistakes) and taking her to live with him in the middle of New York. Her new life reminds her of the Cinderella story that she and her friend Eden used to dream about, but she had never pictured it happening like this- with the news calling her THE ONE WHO WALKED AWAY, and the nightmares, and the only person she can really talk to being Tony's dorky intern Peter, who she spends quite a lot of time with.

Nora tries her best to navigate her new school and her new feelings for Peter, even with the continued mixed feelings she has toward Spiderman (guilt, blame, gratitutude) and the new group that seems intent on taking down the avengers, one member at a time, and doesn't mind taking her with them.

 

 

**All The Lovely Ones Have Scars (series)**

A series of connected one-shot that follows Pepper Potts and Tony Stark through the earlier stages of their relationship. Includes (one) exasperated Pepper Potts, (one) alcoholic and anxious Tony Stark, hospital visits, angsty conversations and unwanted inconveniences, all taking part pre-Iron Man.

 

 

**Infinity War Saga (series)**

A series of one shots following the characters before, during, and after the events of Infinity War, with particular emphasis on the moments that made all us fans want to cry.

INCLUDES:

-A description of Peter Parker's thoughts during THAT scene

-Pepper's side of the phone call where she's trying to convince Tony to come back home, and what she was going to say before the call disconnected

-Shuri trying to guide Wakanda without the help of her brother

-Loki still being alive

-Peter trying to keep his promise to Gamora no matter how badly it hurts

 

 

**These Heavy Hearts We Hold (series)**

Beatrice Palmer (who now goes by Bea, like the insect) didn't want to return to the FBI, to that world of ghosts and shadows and the never ending urge to double check the locks on the door and to look over her shoulder while walking down the street. But when Garcia, her old friend, decided she needed a few months off, she suggests Beatrice to take her place and Bea can't find it within her to say no. Now, she's back in this life of nightmares and monsters, and being a part of the BAU might have made things worth it- especially when she takes into account her quickly developing relationship with Spencer Reid, the team genius.

 

 

**The Malec Chronicles (series)**

A collection of those hidden Malec moments that were missing from the series. Fluff, angst, and more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come find me on Instagram @alwaysscripturient

**Author's Note:**

> Okay crash course of what happened in the book before this:  
> -first off, Audra becomes friends with the Weasley twins when they were younger, because they needed help making potions for their inventions.  
> -This makes her a good guy who turns against her families prejudices, so when Harry announces that Voldemort is back, she's like, okay, cool, time to join the order  
> -she joins the order and becomes some sort of super spy, alright? Like a Snape but more bad ass  
> -she's also dating Fred  
> -keeps being a double agent, becomes a full fledged death eater, takes the mark, and even though she's doing some bad shit to keep her cover story in place, she's falling in love with Fred while pretending everything's fine  
> -gets called out of school by old Voldy, and finds herself at the ministry and suddenly she's got to make a choice: protect Harry and his buddies or keep up with the whole death eater crap  
> -she protects Harry, because it's what Fred would want  
> -Vance (her brother) goes to kill Ginny, Audra takes him down before Ginny gets hurt  
> -accidently kills Vance  
> -now she's super guilty, but doesn't have time to deal with it because she's being a full scale death eater (still a spy tho. Tehcnically a good guy even when she's doing bad things)  
> -and now we're here
> 
> Cool? Cool


End file.
